


Never Love Again, Never Love Another

by KingslayersWhore



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Beautiful Golden Fools, Because I Believe A Fic Can Do Both, Book compliant, Brienne and Jaime are Friendship Goals, But Jaime and Cersei are the dominant ship, But Theres Still A Lot of Cersei/Brienne Moments For Those Who Are Reading For That, Canon Compliant, F/M, Jaime and Brienne friendship, Pro Brienne, Pro Cersei, Season 8 Fix It, Sibling Incest, Smut, Tags changed, The Muses Have Decided On Hyle, We’ll Always Have Pentos
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:27:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 29,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23833852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KingslayersWhore/pseuds/KingslayersWhore
Summary: “We don’t get to choose who we love.” The tall blonde threw his own words back at him, usually stoic voice trembling. “I love you, and you love Cersei, being with her will make you happy so I’ll-... I’ll help save her. For you.”—Jaime and Cersei manage to escape the Red Keep with help from his former flame.  Now, with all three of them wanted by the Dragon Queen for treason, the twins and the Lady Knight escape to Pentos. As Jaime tries to be a real father for the first time, Cersei tries to tell herself she doesn’t need the throne to be happy, and Brienne tries her best to get over her heartbreak; Daenerys’ troops are looking for the golden twins and pale knight and won’t stop until they’ve found them.
Relationships: Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister, Hyle Hunt/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 117
Kudos: 116





	1. Chapter 1

“They’re going to destroy that city. You know they will.”

Jaime wanted to flinch at the way her voice shook. He wanted to curl up into a ball and disappear, he wanted to ignore what he knew was coming. This was the exact reason why he tried to sneak out in the dead of night. 

He already dishonored Brienne, he already ruined her for her eventual husband, he allowed his brother to talk about her in a way he knew she would have been humiliated at, and now he was breaking her heart for a hateful woman he loved more than anything. 

Brienne was good, she was honorable, she was kind, she was decent, she was everything Jaime told himself he was, what Brienne told him he was, but it was all a lie. He wasn’t good, he wasn’t honorable, he wasn’t decent, and he loved Cersei.

He steadied his voice, doing his best to appear as impassive as possible. Maybe if he could make her believe it wasn’t about Cersei she might not be so crushed? 

“Have you ever run away from a fight?” 

She hadn’t. He knew she hadn’t, she was too honorable for that.

He heard her shoes on the snow covered rocks but it wasn’t until he felt her hands in his face did he finally look at her. Her pale yellow hair was loose, not slicked back like she normally liked it, mussed from what he wanted to be his last moments with her. He wanted her to remember him laying beside her, arms wrapped around her after they just made love for the last time, him gently stroking her hair and peppering her face with soft kisses and whispering to get some sleep. He didn’t want her to see him like this. Not running out on her like she was no more than some cheap whore he paid for an evening.

“You’re not like your sister! You’re not! You’re better than she is!” she insisted, and a rush of anger filled him. He wasn’t better than Cersei and Cersei wasn’t better than him. They were one in the same, two hateful miserable souls entwined together forever, and she had no right to comment on his sister. Brienne continued her lies; frantic and pleading. “You’re a good man, and you can’t save her, you don’t need to die with her!”

He saw something in her plain homely face then that he never saw before. Not at the bear pit, not when Lockes men dragged her off to the woods, not during the Long Night…

Brienne was afraid. Not of her lover leaving her, she was terrified for Jaime’s life. She knew what awaited him in King's Landing, she knew he would die just like Renly had, just like Catelyn did, and she would be powerless to stop it. How could he possibly begin to explain that this time it would be different? It wouldn’t be murder, it wouldn’t be a life taken too early and unjustly, it wouldn’t be her fault... 

If he died with Cersei, it would be a blessing.

A wretched pain filled her big blue eyes, and her thick jaw trembled. “Stay here,” she begged him as tears began to fall. “Stay with me… Please… Stay!” 

He hated her.

She never asked anyone for a thing in this world unless it was requested of her and she wasn’t even asking for herself, she was begging for his life. That was how good this woman was; begging a terrible man who's done terrible things to stay with her not for her own self, but to save his own worthless skin. 

His hand reached up and covered hers, gently stroking the soft pale flesh with his thumb. He knew his final words to her would make her despise him, it would hurt her, it would crush her… The least he could do was make sure his last touch was comforting.

“You think I’m a good man?” he breathed, pulling her hand slowly away from his face. “I pushed a boy out of a tower for Cersei.”  _ You would have faced Roberts wrath head on rather than harm an innocent child.  _ “I strangled my own cousin, just to get back to Cersei.”  _ You would have elected to be a prisoner for the rest of your life if it was between hurting your family or freedom.  _ “I would have killed every man, woman and child in Riverrun, for Cersei.”  _ You would have stayed away from me forever if that’s what it took to not draw blood.  _

The shuddering breath she drew was a dagger in his heart, and his anger grew. He glared at the tall woman, all the while hating her for making him hurt her like this and hating himself for not being able to be content with a woman who deserved the world. “She’s hateful… and so am I.”

Jaime turned to leave, to pull himself onto his horse and ride away forever. But before he could grab hold of the reins she reached out and clutched his arm painfully tight, the same way she did at the dragon pit.

“Jaime, wait!” she cried out, a sob escaping before she had the chance to bite it back. He whipped back around, eyes wide. 

Brienne wouldn’t fight him. He knew she wouldn’t, so what in the Seven Hells was she doing? Did she think he could keep him here out of sheer strength alone?

She closed her eyes and fresh tears leaked out from behind her lids. Her plump lips trembled as she spoke. “Do… do you love her?”

The question was a whisper on the wind, as if she was terrified of the answer she had to have known was coming. 

“I do,” Jaime answered, not a whiff of doubt or delay in his words. 

“And… and you’ll be happy? Being with her?”

“I will.”

More tears fell at the affirmation. “We don’t get to choose who we love.” The tall blonde threw his own words back at him, usually stoic voice trembling. She took a deep breath, big hands clenching and unclenching. “I love you-.”

“Brienne, please-.”

“-And you love Cersei,” she continued as if he hadn’t interrupted. “Loving someone, it’s about making them happy, no matter what the cost. So I’ll-... I’ll help save her.” Brienne finally opened her eyes so she could look at him. “I’ll do my best to save Cersei. For you.”

Jaime furrowed his brow. If this was anyone else he would have assumed it was a trap. A scorned lover offers to help the man she loved be with another woman, anyone could see it as a chance to take revenge for the slight. 

But that wasn’t Brienne. Brienne didn’t have a deceitful bone in her body and she was a terrible liar besides. Hells she even gave Stannis Baratheon a clean death and last words. If someone butchered Cersei or Tyrion or Brienne or his children the way Stannis murdered Renly, Jaime would have done FAR worse to the murderer then just behead him.

She had to have been telling the truth. Brienne of Tarth was willing to save the woman her lover loved, just to keep him happy.

Jaime shook his head. “Brienne no. I can’t let you do this.”

“You have one hand.” As if he needed the reminder. “You’re not the fighter you used to be, you said so yourself. There’s no way you’ll be able to pull this off on your own.”

“I won’t have you dying for me or Cersei.”

“It’s not up to you.” Some of her stubborn flame was starting to burn away her tears. “You’re going to die if you go by yourself, Jaime and I can’t-...” Her tremble in her voice was back. “I lost Renly. I lost Lady Catelyn. I lost my brother, my sisters, my mother… I won’t lose someone else I love, even if he doesn’t love me in return.”

“You’re going to be killed if you come with me. You think I want that on my conscience? You dead because you wanted to make me happy with the woman I’m leaving you for?”

She flinched at the harshness of his words. Good. Let her hate him, let her loathe him if it kept her here in Winterfell and away from the battle.

But she didn’t relent. “And what about my conscience? Another person I love, a person I swore to protect, who saved my life a hundred times over, would be dead because I choose to remain a jilted lover and a coward.”

“You’ve more than repaid the life debt and I release you from your vow. Speaking of promises, what about Sansa? You’re going to leave her here alone, defenseless?”

“She’ll understand some day that some things are more important than oaths.” She looked at him with that same look she gave him when she told Jaime, not asked, but  _ told _ him that he would live after they took his hand and he knew there was no use in arguing. “I need to go get ready. If you’re thinking about leaving know that my horse is faster and I’ll catch up easily, so I suggest you stay here and wait for me rather than make me chase you.”

Without so much as a blink she turned on her heel and stormed back in the castle. 

“Stupid bloody stubborn bitch!” he snarled when she was out of earshot, running a hand through his greying hair. 

Cersei would demand to know why Sansas sworn sword was traveling with him, she would demand to know why the woman who made a vow to her enemy would help her, Brienne would tell her the truth and that would be that. His sister would find out about what Jaime and Brienne did, she would either kill them both or kill just Brienne and leave Jaime to be alone in his misery.

He couldn’t decide which option was worse. 

As promised Brienne strode back out to the courtyard this time dressed in the blue armor he commissioned for her with Oathkeeper strapped to her waist. She hadn’t bothered to comb her hair so it was still loose and mussed and as she led her white mare to the courtyard, mounting her effortlessly and sitting tall and proud in the saddle, Jaime couldn’t help but gape at her. 

The moonlight was shining down on her and her straw colored hair was almost a halo around her pale white face, dazzling blue eyes no longer wet with tears but determined and strong. Right then, atop her horse in shining armor and magic sword in hand, ready to go rescue the queen from certain death, Brienne was every knight in every song and story he ever heard. She was Duncan the Tall and Aemon the Dragon Knight, she was Ser Arthur Dayne and Barristan the Bold… She was everything Jaime would never be, and that was fine with him.

Because Cersei understood he would never be that, and loved him anyway.

Jaime mounted his own horse with far more clumsiness then she did, and glanced at the tall blonde. “Brienne, I-.”

“Don’t.” She spoke sharply and must have realized it because her face softened and her tone lightened. “Nothing you can say will make me feel better so let’s just... Let’s just not talk until we get closer to Kingslanding.” 

She clicked her tongue and with a soft kick her horse galloped out of the courtyard with Jaime following a moment later. 

“How do you propose we pass the time then?” he asked when they were far away enough from the castle, voice slightly teasing just as it had been all those years ago, hoping she would remember their past conversations.

She did, “By our horses putting one foot in front of the other,” she answered, a hint of a grin on her homely face as her memories were called up.

He couldn’t help the smirk. “It’s going to be a very dull ride.”

“I’m here to take you to Kingslanding and save the Queen.” She turned towards him and smiled. “Dull, is fine.”


	2. Chapter 2

Brienne told him to take off the bloody hand. She told him to put it in his saddle bag once they approached Kingslanding, but he hadn’t listened and, sure enough, Daenerys’ forces captured them when they got near enough to the camp. 

The Queen split them up, promising the two knights the last time they would see each other was when she carried out their punishment before making another promise to burn Brienne first so she wouldn’t have to witness the man who knighted hers demise. After that they were dragged off in opposite directions to the crowded tents that doubled as their cells and left him alone to contemplate the fact that when the sun rose tomorrow he would be nothing more than a pile of ash.

But he didn’t think about his death, not of the fire, or the pain, or the memories of the Starks that screamed as Aerys roasted them in their armor. He thought about how he failed. He failed Cersei, he failed his child, he failed Brienne… The great golden lion hadn’t saved anyone but instead all he managed to do was get a good woman sentenced to death and made it so Cersei would be alone when she passed.

He heard voices outside the tent, his brother's sorry attempt at Valyrian and then an order in the Common Tongue to let him be alone with the Kingslayer. Jaime didn’t so much as look up when Tyrion walked into the tent, not even when he asked how they managed to catch him, instead just holding up his golden hand.

“Cersei always did say I was the stupidest Lannister,” he lamented as Tyrion walked in and stood in front of him. 

“And you’re going back to her. To die with her.”

There was no anger in his voice, no disappointment; just a sad acceptance of the fate he chose.

“You’ve underestimated her before,” Jaime offered.

“She’s going to die.” Spoken like a father explaining to a child about an inevitability. “Unless you can convince her to change her course of action.”

“Hard to do it from in here,” he mused. 

Even in the darkness Jaime could see the key that his brother held up before him but rather than weep with gratitude at the opportunity to be free, he just gave his brother a sad smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “When have I ever been able to convince Cersei of anything?”

“Try.” Jaime could hear the pleading in his voice, no matter how hard he tried to remain calm and quiet. “If not for you, if not for her then for everyone else in that city. If you care for the innocents in that city-.”

“Of course I care about innocents!” Jaime barked, lowering his voice when the Hand shushed him. “I killed the king to protect the innocents of this city, and now Cersei carries the one innocent thing that I care about more than anything!”

Any fire inside of him was doused at the mention of his child, of the cub he would never get to hold who would never draw breath. “But the child, it’s… it’s the reason Cersei won’t give up the throne. The worst things she’s ever done have been for her children, this won’t be the exception.” He bowed his head. “She could still win. Daenerys lost two of her dragons, she’s lost half the Dothraki-.”

“The city will fall, Jaime.”

“She has the Lannister army,” he continued as if he hadn’t heard his brother's words. “She has the Golden Company-.”

“I’ve defended the city from attack before, I know it better than anyone, the city  _ will _ fall tomorrow!”

“Then I suppose I’ll die tomorrow if not before.” 

Jaime had lost the last of his patience. He just wanted to spend the last of his hours in peace and quiet, not arguing about the inevitability of Cersei's death.

“Then escape.” He looked up at Tyrion who walked closer, sitting on an oversized box besides him. There was a fire burning in his pale green eyes, the same fire he had whenever he used to speak about a new book he read as a child. “Escape together, start a new life. Remember where we met? In the room beneath the Redkeep where they keep the dragon skulls? Take her down there, keep following the stairways down, down as far as they’ll go. You’ll come out onto a beach at the foot of the keep, a dinghy will be waiting for you. Sail out of the bay, with any luck you’ll make it to Pentos. Start a new life there, the two of you.”

Jaime swallowed hard. What Tyrion was offering was a dream. A new life together, him and Cersei and their cub; all happy and together, able to freely show their love for one another, no more hiding. There would be no more scornful looks or sneered remarks, no more politics, just the three of them together and happy for once in their lives.

_ No _ , he realized once he set aside the fantasy and thought about the real-life logistics.  _ It can’t happen.  _ “So just sail on right past the Iron Fleet to a new life in Pentos? Sounds a lot less likely than Cersei winning the war.

“There isn’t going to be any Iron Fleet for much longer! Do it! Or else you won’t ever see Cersei again.”

His heart clenched at the possibility he knew might have been a reality but hearing it out loud... The last memory they would have for one another is him walking away and her giving the go ahead to the Mountain to kill him, they would die alone, she would think he didn’t love her. That can’t happen. 

Tyrion must have seen the pain in his eyes because he leaned forward, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Promise me,” he begged.

Jaime nodded quickly. His breath trembled as he spoke. “You have my word.”

Without another moment wasted Tyrion undid his shackles. “If it works, give the order to ring all the bells in Kingslanding and open the gates. That will be our signal that the city has surrendered.” A fleeting smile made its way into his face. “I never thought I’d get the chance to repay the favor. Remember- ring the bells and open the gates.”

Jaime rubbed his wrists where he had been shackled. “Your Queen will execute you for this.”

“If she cannot take the city without wading through a river of blood, maybe she’ll show mercy to the man who made it possible.” Tyrion stood and looked down at his brother. “Tens of thousands of innocent lives, one not so innocent dwarf. Seems like a fair trade.”

Jaime’s face fell as he looked up at his brother for what he knew to be their very last moments together. He could see his chin tremble, and he saw the tears gathering in his eyes. “If it weren’t for you, I never would have survived my childhood.”

His own eyes grew wet. He spoke in nothing but a whisper. “You would have.”

Tyrion shook his head, taking a shuddering breath as he hit back his tears. “You were-... you you were the only one who didn’t treat me like a monster. You were all I had.” 

The two lions wrapped their arms around one another, clutching at one another as if it was their last moment together, and both knew that it was. Tears spilled from both their eyes but neither one bothered to wipe them away. Jaime kisses the top of his head as his brother sobbed in his arms, whispering that he loved him over and over as his small body shook from his cries. They held one another for far too short a time before they finally pulled away.

Jaime stood up from the floor and hurried over to where a spare cloak was laying on top of a desk, fashioning it around himself. 

He knew what he was about to ask was dangerous, but he had to try. “I need one last favor,” he told Tyrion.

“Anything.”

“You need to free Brienne as well. You need to free her, tell her the plan, and tell her to meet me by the Western Gate tomorrow when the sun has been in the sky for a quarter of an hour.” When he saw his brother begin to protest he interrupted him with a plea. “The only reason she’s here and not safe in Winterfell because of me. I won’t let her die because of my incompetence, so you need to either give me your word you’ll free her, or I’ll walk around this camp full of the queen's soldiers trying to figure out a way to save her myself.” He pulled the hood of his cloak over his head. “If you want to save innocents, start with her. She’s the most innocent woman I know.”

Only after Tyrion promised to save Brienne did Jaime leave, this time hiding his golden hand inside his cloak and bowing his head as he snuck through the camps, managing to make his way through the various Northerners and Knights, Unsullied and Dothraki until finally he was free and without a look back he stole one of the Dothraki stallions and galloped as hard and as fast as he ever had before towards the looming red keep, arriving at the gate he told Tyrion to tell Brienne he would be at an hour before sunrise.

It was abandoned just as he knew it would be. All of the forces were concentrated on the front gates and the ones closest to the main gate, thinking that there was no way an army would ride around the massive city not knowing if an ambush waited for them back here or not.

The suns rays eventually made its way over the horizon and from the very first burst of light he began counting, trying not to worry as the minutes slowly crept by. Tyrion would save Brienne, he promised he would. She was safe, she wasn’t a pile of ash and bones, she was riding for the Red Keep right now.

One minute passed. Then another. Then three, then five then ten.

Jaime swallowed hard as he looked over at the open fields. Brienne wasn’t coming. Tyrion either hadn’t been able to save her or she had been recaptured but either way she wasn’t here, and he would have to save Cersei and try to save the city on his own. He took a deep breath, lifted the hood over his eyes and pushed open the gate. 

What happened next was a blur. He made his way through the crowded streets, hurrying through panicked men, women and children as they raced to the Redkeep, desperately trying to make his way to Cersei before the inner gates slammed shut. He cried out to the guard, that he was the queen's brother but he was too far back and the guard either didn’t hear or didn’t believe him but he wasn’t even spared a second glance.

Jaime backed out of the increasingly panicked crowd, his heart pounding painfully hard against his ribs. In the distance he could see the dragon taking flight, could hear the screams and shouts of the soldiers fighting but he didn’t have time to worry about that. He had to get to Cersei, and he had to get to her NOW! If he couldn’t get to Cersei through the front door, he would go through the way he was meant to take her out.

He sprinted through the city as the townsfolk cried out for Cersei to ring the bells, begging for mercy, announcing they were surrendering and Jaime wanted to laugh and cry all at once. 

His sister wouldn’t surrender, he managed to fail at that too, he couldn’t get to her in time. He wouldn’t get the chance to save the city he had become the Kingslayer for. Daenerys would destroy the Redkeep along with everyone in it and he would never see Cersei again.

Then there it was. The sweet sound of the bells, ringing loud and clear for all to hear. The city was saved. The people would live, his sisters reign was at an end. But, as much as he wanted to lean back and enjoy this triumphant moment, it made no sense. Only the monarch could give the order to ring the bells and there was no way Cersei would surrender so easily, and why was only one bell ringing? When the order was given designated runners who had sole permission to relay the command to every bell in the city, all seven of them, to tell the guardsman to ring the bell and all of them began ringing within seconds of each other.

Jaime looked over at the bell tower closest to him where the sound was coming from and at the foot of it was a dead guard, blood pouring from a wound in his throat, and there, in the tower high above the corpse, blue armor and pale blonde hair shone brightly in the early morning sun.

Eventually the other bells began ringing, following the firsts example and Jaime looked over at the northern wall where Drogon and his rider was resting. He waited for her to fly down and dismount or to head over to the Red Keep to accept Cersei’s surrender but instead she flew off towards the center of the city, unleashing Holy Hell upon the citizens. 

Screams and the sound of Drogon’s terrifying song filled the air. People were running, tripping over each other, trampling each other, doing their best to get away from the city’s crowded area. He could smell the flesh burning and Jaime had to force himself to run, to not be drawn back into the horrors of his memories at the Goldroad or as Aerys kingsguard as Daenerys burned the city he fought so hard to save once. 

The Kingslayer sprinted to the strip of beach Tyrion told him would lead to the Redkeep and there, just as promised, was the boat waiting for him as well as the tunnel that would lead him to Cersei.

He plunged into the darkness, racing up, up, up the stairs. The castle shook and crumbled, the sounds of the screams from the outside grew louder and louder as Jaime ran past the room where the dragon skulls were kept and into the less hidden parts of the castle. 

As he was hurrying up the stairs he heard someone racing down it. Before he could stop himself, a guard rounded the corner and crashed into him headfirst, sending them both hurtling down the stone steps, both of them grasping and grabbing onto anything that would break their falls as they fell, tangled together. A sharpness plunged into Jaime’s side and he screamed before they both crashed onto a landing.

The guards neck was bent as a sickening angle when they finally came to a stop and the dagger he had been running with was now deeply embedded in Jaime’s side.

Jaime grasped the hilt and yanked it out with another scream and the hot blood began to flow over his fingers as he clutched at the wound. He stood up, wobbling dangerously and having to hold onto the side of the wall to move, far slower than last time but finally, after an eternity, he made it to Maegor's Holdfast and there she was.

Cersei was beautiful. The dreams he had of her while he was away did her no justice. Even with tears streaming down her face she was a beauty, the Maiden made flesh, and she was alive. She was here, he was here, and they were both alive.

“Jaime!” she sobbed, raising her arms as he ran to meet her, hugging her tightly. She threw her arms around him and he closed his eyes as he inhaled the scent of her, hardly able to believe this was real.

But it was. It was real, she was in his arms safe and he was home with her where he belonged.

He winced, forcing himself to stand as the pain from the stabbing threatened to overwhelm him. Cersei stepped back, looking terrified as she pulled her hands away covered in blood, his blood.

“You’re hurt…” she gasped, as if the knife had pierced her too.

“I’m fine,” he promised in a whispered breath. Another loud crash and she clung to him tighter. He grabbed her hand. “Come on. I’ll save you, I’ll save you but we have to go.”

She followed him, wincing at every bang, tightening her grip at every shake of the great castle. They hurried down the stairs, never letting go of one another, not even for an instance. A loud crash above them told them that there was no other way but down but as terrifying as it was, as close as he knew the Stranger must have been to the golden twins, Jaime felt at peace.

If he died, he would die with Cersei. He would die in the arms of the woman he loved, his last moments would be spent comforting her, protecting her, loving her. Jaime could feel her panic rising but he just kept telling her over and over he would save her, he would get her out of here.

When they reached the room with the dragon skulls he came to a halt. The passageway was blocked. There was no way out. They were trapped.

“I don’t want to die,” Cersei cried out, tears falling down her cheeks as Jaime checked around for any hint of the hidden staircase or any other way out but the blood loss was making him weaker and weaker. It was all he could do to stand much less shift the debris to make a pathway. “I don’t want my baby to die, I don’t want my baby to die!”

Jaime closed his eyes as he let the inevitable wash over him. He was going to die. He was going to die with Cersei in his arms. He could not have asked for a better death.

He ran back over her and buried his hand in her hair and held her close. “Look at me,” he told her, “look at me, Cersei, nothing else matters.” All around them the ceiling was crumbling, caving in, smashing all around them. “Nothing else matters, nothing else matters.”

She looked up at him and as they took what was sure to be their last breaths, here together, he swore he saw her smile. She smiled because she was here with him, and they would die the same way they went into this world. 

Together.

**_!CRASH!_ **

The loud bang didn’t come from the ceiling but rather from the wall. A hole had been made in the top, and then a moment later more debris and bricks were cleared away and then suddenly, there she was. 

Blood matted her straw blonde hair and her face was nothing but grey ash and blood but Brienne was there, and she was alive with a clear passageway behind her.

“ **COME ON** !” Brienne screamed at the two Lannister’s, blue eyes wide with fear and terror and adrenaline. It took a moment for the shock to wear off but when it did Jaime grabbed hold of Cersei and ran towards the tall knight who was racing ahead of them. The passageway shuddered and shook violently as a thunderous eruption let them know the room they had been standing in moments before had been destroyed. The three of them made their way down the stairs as quickly as they could. Jaime stumbled and nearly collapsed, almost taking Cersei down with him.

Brienne hurried back and put his arm over his shoulders, shouting at a reluctant Cersei to go on ahead while they followed behind. Brienne was moving so fast his feet were barely touching the floor. He could see a pale light in the distance but it was more and more of a struggle to stay awake. They were thrust into the bright daylight as the castle collapsed behind them. In the distance he could hear the dragon roaring, he could hear the screams, but it was muted and faint, as if it were just happening in his imagination but all of a sudden even standing with Brienne carrying most of his weight seemed like too much of a challenge.

“Jaime!” Cersei cried out as he collapsed onto the sand. He felt two sets of hands on him, soft and dainty and delicate over his heart then hard and calloused and large over the wound in his side. “No! No, Jaime, not now!”

“You are not allowed to die,” Brienne told him, a shake in her usual stoic voice as she put pressure on his wound. “Do you hear me? The life debt is back to you and I do not release you from your oath.”

“Don't tell me what to do,” he grumbled. The light of the sun grew dimmer, both the one in the sky and the one he was talking to. “I’ll die if it pleases me, Wench.”

“Jaime, no!” Cersei clung to him and laid her head on his chest. “Don’t leave me alone. Don’t leave me alone, please don’t leave me alone…”

Her words were as soft as a breeze and they were the last thing Jaime heard as the world faded to black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So a few things have been changed.   
> The innocents line. I’m sorry but…. no. That stupidity had to be taken out. Jaime DOES care about innocents. He loves his family more, he loves Cersei more, but he DOES care about innocents and even in his worst moment he wouldn’t say something like that. 
> 
> The Euron/Jaime fight. First off in my mind that sleeze drowned and died a horrifying death when his ship got blown up. Fuck him. Plus the fight was only because the actors are both Danish, like it made no logistical sense. 
> 
> But I hope you liked this chap anyway ❤️


	3. Chapter 3

“Jaime? Jaime!  **_JAIME_ ** !”

No! No no no no no! Jaime couldn’t die, not now. He couldn’t die while she lived, they were a part of each other, they shared a soul. The ugly creature was barking something at her but her words were a buzz of a fly. How could she be expected to listen to anyone when her other half was dying before her eyes?

Cersei must have taken too long to respond because the Tarth woman grabbed her arm and shook the Queen from her daze.

“We need to get off this beach,” the creature told her, deep voice failing to hide the mounting panic. She tore a scrap of fabric from her breeches and pressed it tight against Jaime’s wound with a trembling hand. “He- he needs a maester!”

“There are no Maesters you dumb bitch, the whole city is on fire!”

“He is dying because of you!” Brienne shouted back. “You will not just sit back and allow him to die! Where’s Qyburn? Is he still inside?”

Tears sprung to Cersei’s eyes at the reminder that the man who treated her more like a daughter then Tywin ever had was gone; killed by the person he created to protect the queen. The creature must have realized what the wet eyes meant because she quickly abandoned that idea. She closed her eyes and took several deep calming breaths before her eyes flew open and she no longer looked panicked but she was calm and determined. She undid the cloak she was wearing and handed it to Cersei.

“Come on,” Brienne told the queen. She scooped Jaime up in her thick arms and stood. Cersei didn’t even bother trying not to gape at this behemoth of a woman who carried her brother like he was a sack of flour rather than a fully grown man. 

“Daenerys didn’t touch the west side of the city or at least not the edges. There has to be an inn there,” Brienne told her. “We’ll go there.”

Without waiting for approval the woman headed off toward the burning city. Not having any other choice Cersei fashioned the cloak that fell past her ankles and followed, having to almost run to keep up with the creatures long strides. Neither said anything to the other as they hurried back into the city. Cersei kept her eyes on Jaime and tried her best not to panic. His color was fading fast and she couldn’t be sure but his breaths seemed to come slower and slower.

Kingslanding was madness. The dragon had landed, finally, but the smell of smoke and fire and blood was choking the air and ash fell so heavy it was as if they were walking through a blizzard of death. Everywhere men, women and children were running, screaming and sobbing, even on the side of the city that had been spared. Cersei watched as a group of Northern soldiers ravaged some shrieking woman out in the open, no shame or restraint. The tall blonde eyes flickered to the group and she paused in her step before she looked down at the man she was carrying. Even with her absurd amount of strength she was starting to falter under the weight of him and Brienne was forced to press on. 

“There.” Cersei pointed to an inn that she went to once with Jaime, back when both were too nervous to be together in the castle or any of the inns near the Redkeep. Surely that would bring some good luck to her knight. “That one.”

Brienne didn’t second guess the queen and, staggering slightly, she and Cersei hurried into the inn. The innkeep told them in half a daze the rooms were all filled but when Cersei slammed down a ring worth more than the inn three times over and ordered the woman to find a room, all of a sudden a vacancy opened up. Brienne struggled under the weight as they climbed the three flights and was panting and huffing when they finally reached their room. She all but dropped him on the bed and collapsed next to him, sweat leaving streaks of wet on her ash and blood covered face.

“We need clean water, clean sheets, wine and a sewing kit,” the creature gasped out, pushing the wet mop of straw colored hair from her eyes.

The innkeep ran off to fetch the supplies and after taking a few much deserved gulps of air Brienne stood. 

“Do you know how to make a proper fire?” she asked the queen who glared at the question but stayed silent, knowing that she had never so much as touched the ash or logs that went into her fireplace. Sensing what the answer would be Brienne told her to instead strip Jaime of his shirt and she tended to the fire instead.

Cersei undid Jaime’s shirt, flinching are the sight of thick wet blood. His breaths were shallow and when she felt for a pulse it was slow and hard pressed to find.

“Jaime,” Cersei whispered, cupping his handsome face. “Jaime, can you hear me?” The Queens tears fell on his lips as if to give him nurishment. “You can’t leave me, Jaime. We die together or not at all. We live as one or not at all.” In the corner of her eyes she saw Brienne bow her head and look away from the display, big blue eyes wet and shining. 

Despite everything else, the sight made Cersei smirk. This creature thought it possible for Jaime to love someone like her. She saw it in the way this beast spoke about Jaime back at Joffrey's wedding, she saw the way her eyes lit up when they walked together side by side in the castle after she returned him to Kingslanding. Brienne didn’t understand the way the world worked, that Jaime was Cersei’s and only hers and he would always come back home to her.

_ The great beast knows now though. He’s mine, not hers. _

The innkeep returned just as the fire the creature started had started to roar. The tall woman thanked her and set the flagon of wine to boil before she took the water and began to wash away the blood and ash and Gods knows what else from the wound. After the wine was boiled she poured a generous amount over the gaping hole, and even in sleep Jaime moaned at the pain. Brienne dipped the needle and thread into the wine and began to sow, saying nothing the whole while. When she was done with the stitching Brienne tore strips from the clean crisp sheets and wrapped them tightly around his midsection as a makeshift bandage that worked well enough. 

“There won’t be any milk of the poppy available,” the creature lamented when she was finished. She rested her hand on his forehead as if checking for a favor but her hand lingered there a bit too long for Cersei’s liking. “He’s going to have to suffer through the pain.”

“He’s handled worse,” the queen said, eyeing his golden hand, the one he earned protecting the cow. Even after all these years it still stung the Queen that he lost his hand for the woman who held him captive so she wouldn’t be taken in every hole she had but never so much as lift a finger to save Cersei’s from Robert’s drunken painful fumblings.

Brienne finally pulled her hand away and made her way to one of the chairs beside the fireplace, sitting down with a groan, rubbing the back of her neck. Cersei eyed the tall knight for a moment. She pressed her lips to Jaime’s forehead, the same spot the blonde just laid her hand, before she went over and sat opposite besides the creature. The taller woman stared down at the floor, heat creeping up into her cheeks. “Are you hurt at all?” she asked the queen.

Cersei shook her head, placing a hand on her stomach. She could feel the soft swell of her cub that she knew she wouldn’t be able to hide from her enemies for much longer . “I’m fine.”

“Good.” Brienne glanced over at the man laying in the bed and the look of longing she wore was almost sickening. “That’s what he wanted.” The creature turned back to the Queen. “That’s why he came back. To either die with you or save you.”

“And you came to save him,” the lioness practically growled. Jaime’s wasn’t hers to save, she wasn’t hers to love or fawn over or worry about.

Brienne shook her head. “I came to save you.”

“Sure you did.”

“It’s true,” the creature insisted stubbornly. Her cheeks grew hotter. “I just want Jaime to be happy.  _ You _ make him happy.” 

“That’s right I do.”  _ In all the ways you never could. _

“That’s why I came to save you. All I want is his happiness.”

Cersei didn’t believe that. Not for one moment. “So you’re telling me his life wasn’t at all a motivation for you abandoning that red headed whore?”

Fire flashed in the creatures eyes at the insult of Sansa but she let it slide off her back for the time being. “Yes, I wanted to keep Jaime alive. I wanted to keep him alive and happy, even if that wasn’t with me.”

She was lying. There had to be some reason this woman traveled back with Jaime. No one offered up their life up so freely for a friend.

Unless….

Cersei’s face hardened as she looked at Brienne with her ugly face, short choppy hair and flat chested body that was taller and stronger than most mens. No. No, she was being insane. Jaime would never fuck this creature, not when he had her. How could he? Jaime loved Cersei, Jaime belonged to Cersei, he would not disrespect her by fucking another woman especially not while his twin was half a world away and pregnant. 

The blonde longed to be loved by a man a thousand times more beautiful than her who indulged in her foolish wishes to be a knight, that was why she came with him. The creature hoped Jaime would fall for her because of her heroics and leave Cersei for her, that was it. Brienne of Tarth was just as capable of scheming and plotting with the rest of them.

“The Targaryen bitch will kill you when she finds out you’ve come south to help me escape. You can’t ever go back North to Sansa.”

The creature bowed her head. Shame radiedated off her in waves, of breaking her precious vow. “I know.”

“And you can’t go back home to your ugly little island, that’s the first place she’ll look for you.”

“I’m aware. What’s the point of this?”

Cersei smiled. “Just wanted to know if this was worth it. If seeing him with me, the woman he loves that according to you and the rest of you hateful hypocrites shouldn’t have, is worth it.” 

Brienne’s eyes grew hard and hateful. She stood up from her chair and Cersei hated to admit how impressive her stature was. She was even taller than Robert and thick with muscles rather than fat with the most beautiful blue eyes the queen had even seen. If Brienne had been born with a cock between her legs she would have been a hero for all the ages, every woman would have wanted to fuck him and every man would want to be him, but this creature had been cursed with the same pink slit as the queen and suffered a similar fate.

“Jaime’s alive.” Her voice was full of fire. “He isn’t crushed beneath the Red Keep. Whatever else comes from this, whatever else I’m forced to endure I’ll do it gladly because he will draw breath for another day.” The look she threw the Queen was full of loathing. “I saved Jaime. Not just today but a dozen times during the Long Night and he saved me in return. You sent a man, his friend, to murder him all because he kept his promise to fight for the living.”

“Yet he still chose to return to me rather than stay in Winterfell.” Cersei stood up as well, having to crane her neck up to meet the creatures eyes but meet them she did. The smirk she wore was sharp and without joy. “What do you think that says about you?”

The queen could see tears grow in her eyes but rather than respond Brienne twisted away and stormed off.

“I’m going to go and try to find us some food before it’s all looted. Change his dressing every two hours if I’m not back by then.”

“You’ll be killed if you go into that city.”

Brienne didn’t look or say another word and instead just slammed the door shut behind her.

_ Good,  _ Cersei thought as she sat back down in her chair besides the fire.  _ Let the creature get trampled out there, let her get captured by the dragon's savages, let half a hundred men have her cunt and give her a bastard as ugly as her. She deserves it for trying to plot to take Jaime away from me. _

She wasn’t back by the time it was to change the bandages so Cersei did it, crinkling her nose at the sight of the blood, not as much as she thought there would be though (the creature actually managed to stitch him up rather well) and afterwards she rested her hand overtop his chest. His heart was beating in time with Cersei’s and she knew it would only grow stronger. He didn’t flinch though, or open those beautiful green eyes that mirrored hers.

“Come back to me,” she whispered as soft as a breeze. “Jaime, please. I won’t be able to make it without you, I know I won’t. Things will be different between us. I swear it, just please come back to me…”

Exhausted, Cersei climbed under covers and laid her hand down on his chest. He didn’t stir. It didn’t take long for the Queen fell asleep, dreaming of her brother kissing her, taking her, tasting her, touching her, loving her. Only when he was done rather than laying with her he stood and walked away from her in his white Kingsguard armor and a cloak of Lannister red.

“Jaime?” The queen cried out. “Jaime, don't leave. Not again.”

He didn’t look back. The lion on his cloak blurred and rippled and changed to a crescent moon on a field of azure and on the hilt of his sword was a sapphire that shined as brilliant a blue as the eyes of the tall blonde woman on her brother's arm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So in the books, for those who haven’t read them, Jaime calls Brienne ‘wench’ to the point it actually becomes kind of like her pet name. So that’s why Cersei calls her ‘creature’. Jaime calls her wench, Tyrion calls her a mountain, Cersei calls her a creature. Brienne has the ultimate insulting Lannister trifecta lol.


	4. Chapter 4

Cersei awoke to the sounds to the sound of the door opening and shutting. She blinked and sat up, shielding her eyes from the light of the fire that Brienne was making larger and hotter.

“How long have you been gone?” she asked in a tired grumble as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. 

“About three hours,” the creature answered as she fed more logs to the fire. Once Cersei could see properly she noticed she had a long bundle wrapped in a black cloak that she set in the side and a messenger bag slung over her shoulder. 

She looked broader, bigger and when Cersei looked closer she noticed that she was wearing armor and not just any armor but the dark blue set the creature wore at the dragon pit. 

“How did you get that back?”

“I went back to the camp where me and Jaime were held when we were captured, it was abandoned,” she answered as she pulled out a loaf of bread along with a hunk of hard cheese and salted beef.

“You stupid girl,” Cersei sneered as she climbed out of the bed. “You could have been caught, you could have been killed and for what? A suit of armor?”

“It was a gift,” the creature said without looking at the queen. “I wouldn’t leave it for Daenerys’ troops to pawn off and sell. Have you been changing the bandages?”

“Of course I have! Do you think I’m an idiot?” Brienne said nothing and Cersei narrowed her green eyes in anger at the tall woman but seeing as how she was the reason the Lannisters were even standing here she decided to let the insult and insubordination slide. 

Brienne came over and placed her large freckled hand on his forehead, frowning. “He’s burning up,” she muttered to herself, stripping the bed of its thick blankets. “Infection must have set in.”

Panic hitched in her throat and gripped at her heart. “You didn’t clean the wound out good enough!” Cersei growled, hoping her anger would cover up her fear. “If he dies-!”

“He was stabbed with a dirty blade, walked through a castle that was falling apart around him THEN had to be carried through a filthy city. But yes, it’s my fault he got an infection.” Brienne pushed the shaggy mane from the lion's face and the tender way she touched him was almost sickening. “He isn’t going to die.” The Queen was unsure rather or not the creature was trying to convince herself or Cersei. “He’s too strong to be beaten by a simple stab wound.” 

Cersei watched as she hurried over to her bad and pulled out a jar of thick golden honey and, even more curiously, a bulb of garlic and a ginger root. She poured some of the water from a skin she had hooked to her belt into a cup and began crushing the garlic with the flat side of a blade, pouring its crushed contents into the water before she minced the ginger as well, adding that to the concoction.

“Oh, yes, worry about seasoning our dinner while a fever ravages my brother!” barked Cersei, but the creature ignored her as she stirred the contents of the cup and set it over the fire to heat.

Brienne grabbed the honey and a strip of the sheet the innkeep brought up earlier, dipping the white linen into the golden nectar. Without a word she came over and took off his bandages and Cersei flinched at the sight of the bright red skin around the cut. That wasn’t there when she changed them last, and she told Brienne as much but she was once again unheeded. 

“What are you doing?” Cersei asked as she spread the honey over the stab wound. 

This time she got an answer. “Honey draws out infections and helps heal wounds,” the creature said, slathering more of the sticky substance over the cut. 

“Where did you learn that?”

“My Maester refused to help me when I was a girl, seeing as most of my injuries were from learning to fight.” The creature wrapped a fresh new bandage around Jaime. “I had to learn how to heal myself.”

“You’re an idiot then.” Brienne looked up at her, pale brow furrowed. “You could have gotten yourself killed because you wanted to pretend you have a cock.”

“I survived,” she said simply before she went back over to the fireplace and grabbed the queer tea. She lifted Jaime’s head up with one hand while the other held the mug. “Jaime.” The creature's voice was soft and tender, gentle and loving, a world away from the short sharp tone she took with the queen. “Jaime, this is going to taste bad but I need you to drink.” 

A whispered mutter was their only answer. She put the cup to his lips and tilted it back into his mouth. Cersei saw the lump in his throat as he swallowed and watched as his face grimaced but he went still a moment later. 

“He hates ginger,” Cersei lamented as the creature laid his head back down on the pillow. 

“I know,” Brienne answered.

That two words response drew fourth the queens ire more than any other thing the creature had said and done so far. She had no right to know about Jaime’s likes or dislikes, she had no right to look at him with those big blue eyes or touch him with those freak mannish hands of hers. As soon as she healed her brother, this Brienne of Tarth was going to find herself with a dagger buried in her womb and a root of ginger shoved down her throat. The thought made Cersei smile bigger than she had in months.

Brienne made them a lackluster meal of bread and cheese then when Cersei complained about it being too meager Brienne disappeared downstairs, returning minutes later with two bowls of thin watery stew.

“It’s all the innkeeper had at this hour,” Brienne said when she saw Cersei open her mouth to argue that she needed something of more substance. “Besides we don’t want to risk spending our limited funds on food, that’s why I went out and got the rations in the first place.”

“ _ Our _ funds?”

“Yes  _ our _ funds. We’re going to need money in Pentos, don't forget.”

“Who says you’re going?” Her green eyes were awash with cruelty. “Who says Jaime even wants you to come? He already tried to get away from you once.”

The words cracked and splintered the stoic mask Brienne wore to the point a needles worth of sympathy pricked at the Queen. Brienne swallowed hard, turning her back on the other woman. “A one handed man who's been stabbed and a woman who's never had to lift more than a tiara in her life can’t row to Pentos on their own. You’re going to need my help and once the two of you are safe…” Her gaze fell on Jaime, and Cersei saw the tears gather in her eyes that she tried her best to blink away. “You’ll never hear from me again.”

“I’m counting the days.”

They ate their pitiful meal in silence, with only Jaime’s labored breathing and the crackling of the fire for company. Cersei ate every crumb of bread, every speck of cheese, every spoonful of stew, and when she was done she gave Brienne the most pitiful look she could muster and the tall knight handed over the heel from the bread without a single word of argument or complaint for once.

_I know_ _it’s not what you want my little prince_ , she told her cub, laying a dainty hand over her stomach after she was done with her supper. _And I know it’s not enough_ _but we need to make due for now._ _Your father will get us_ ** _real_** _food when he wakes up, not this slop that this creature is forcing us to endure._

She could feel the baby moving inside her. He was strong and powerful, a golden haired prince. She would beat the witches curse and her son would be as fierce as Joffrey, as ruthless as Tywin and as strong as Jaime. Then, when he comes of age he will take back the Seven Kingdoms from that violet eyed whore with an army all his own and the rightful queen by his side. The lions would rule Westeros again, Cersei just had to be patient. 

Green eyes flicked over to the tall knight and the corner of her lips tugged upwards. The lions would rule Westeros again, but if her son's army were to burn a certain island to the ground until it was nothing more than a smoking ruin in the sea, well… it wouldn’t be a total loss.

“You should get some sleep,” the creature told her as she took her spot by the fire. “I’ll stay awake so I can change his dressings and I’ll brew him that tea again before the nights over.”

Cersei didn’t need to be told twice. Even with her short lived nap the days events left her absolutely exhausted and she didn’t realize just how dead on her feet she was until she climbed in besides Jaime. She frowned at the burning heat coming off him and gently pushed a lock of his once golden hair, now darkened with age, away from his forehead and rested her hand on his face, the way he would always do to her when they were intimate. He learned towards her touch, muttering something far too low for the creature to hear. Cersei leaned down, his breath warm against her ear and she heard him say her name, fever drenched and muttered but it was clear enough and a tear fell from her eye and onto his face as if she were cooling him down.

Before another one could fall, he said another word. Just as muttered, just as strained, equal to the way he gasped out hers.

Brienne.

Cersei pulled away as if she had been slapped. Her gaze fell on the creature who was sitting beside the fire, staring off into the flames and a terrifying rage she had no idea could exist for anyone besides her monsterous little imp of a brother filled her. She was going to kill her. She had no right to take what was hers, she had no right to be loved by her other half, her name didn’t deserve to fall from the lips he used to kiss and taste his twins body. The only thing this creature deserved was to have a dagger plunged into her nonexistent chest. 

But for now, Cersei was forced to admit that the creature was right. They needed her to get to Pentos, Jaime needed her to keep him alive but after that… slavery was still legal in some of the city states. They had fallen back to the Masters once Daenerys left, Cersei was sure someone would fetch a decent price for the great cow. The Dothraki would look at her and see a broodmare they could use to give the Khalasar strong strapping sons. Perhaps once they were safe in Essos Cersei could arrange for a Khal to buy her. Once again the thought made Cersei smile as she fantasized about the tall knight face down in a stifling hot Dothraki tent, struggling and screaming helplessly as the Khal and his Bloodriders took turns spilling their seed into her blonde cunt. 

Not to mention Jaime earned his golden hand saving her virtue. It would be a sweet little bit of revenge to know Briemne would lose it after saving Jaime (and of course her twin would never know any better. Brienne just up and left one day, why would Cersei have any knowledge of her whereabouts?)

The thought was like a soft lullaby sung by her mother and soon enough she fell asleep with a smile on her face and clinging to her brother. What felt like not even a second later she felt a shift besides her. Her eyes flickered open and they landed on Brienne tipping another cup of her tea into his mouth, fresh bandages that smelled like honey wrapped around him.

The creature didn’t notice she woke up the queen, nor did she notice her staring at her. Instead she just stroked his cheek as tender as one might caress a lover and dropped to her knees, bowing her head.

“Father, Mother, Warrior, Maiden, Smith, Crone, Stranger,” the queen heard her mutter and Cersei rolled her eyes, turning over to go back to sleep.

“Protect him,” the creature said as soft as a sigh. “Heal him, give him your strength. Bring him back to me.” Her hand folded into a fist. A shaky breath from Brienne, and then, “bring him back to her.” Cersei blinked but didn’t dare move. “If his twin is who he truly loves, make her worthy of him. Make her heart sing for him as his does for her, protect her, keep her safe for him.”

She finished the prayer with a plea to keep Sansa from harm and an apology for breaking her oath and then Cersei heard her stand up and a moment later she gently shook her shoulder, rousing her from what Brienne thought was sleep. “It’s your turn to keep watch,” the creature whispered. “I just changed the bandages and fed him the tea, there’s another cup all ready to go you just need to put it on the fire.”

Cersei said nothing, just nodded and climbed out of bed. Brienne headed back over to her chair by the fire and in minutes she was fast asleep, leaving Cersei alone with her screaming thoughts.

The Dothraki are savages, the queen thought as she sat in the other chair opposite the tall woman. They value beauty more than strength in their women, they’d probably enslave Cersei for trying to sell them the knight. No that plan would never work, Cersei decided as she watched the Lady of Tarth sleep. That plan would never work at all…


	5. Chapter 5

_ Scrape. Scrape. Scrape.  _

Cersei blinked her eyes open to a familiar sound. The sound of a whetstone grinding against metal, the same sound she had constantly suffered when Robert was living. This time it was the creature scraping the black stone against a large sword with streaks of grey in the metal. 

“Do you  _ really  _ need to do that?” The queen asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes before she laid her hand against Jaime’s forehead. His fever had come down considerably but he was still a bit too warm for her liking.

“I don’t want to chance them getting dull,” she answered without looking at the Queen as she continued the monotonous movements. “Besides it relaxes me.”

“Robert used to tell me the same, that it relaxed him,” Cersei mused as she got out of the bed and stretched her hands towards the ceiling. “I’m sure it did until I threatened to shove that steel he was sharpening into his eye if he so much as did one more stroke within earshot. Is breakfast ready?”

The creature froze in her movements but she, to Cersei’s great satisfaction, set the large sword and stone beside her. “Ham steaks, eggs fried in bacon grease and brown bread to soak it up,” she announced, nodding to a tray that was sitting by the fire, one of the plates already clear.

The queens stomach lurched just at the sound of the fat and grease laden breakfast. She sprinted to the thankfully clean chamber pot and emptied her meager dinner from last night into it. Afterwards Brienne asked her if she was alright but Cersei just waved her away and told the tall woman she wasn’t hungry. Not for what the inn was serving at least.

“I’ll knight you if you go and find me some fruit,” the Queen groaned as she collapsed into the chair, placing a hand over her stomach and trying to soothe the hungry cub inside. “Any, I don’t care what.”

“I’ve already been knighted,” the blonde told her. 

Cersei raised a brow. “Have you?”

“On the eve of the battle of Winterfell.” The joy in her face shined as bright as the sun on her sigil. “It was the greatest gift I’ve ever been given.”

“You’re a woman,” Cersei reminded her with a sneer, sounding near as like to Tywin as she ever had before, using the same words her father used on a five year old Cersei who didn’t understand why she wasn't able to play knights with Jaime and the rest of the squires and why she had to sit inside and knit instead. “Women can’t be knights.”

“Jaime didn’t think so.”

Before the queen could even wrap around her mind around the realization of what the creature was saying, Brienne stood and headed towards the door. “I’ll go and see if the innkeep has any fruit,” she announced, shutting the door behind her.

Her anger filled her with a rage she wasn’t sure to direct at Jaime or Brienne. When she was young she used to dress in her brothers clothes, no man could tell them apart except for their father and mother. She was allowed to play stick swords and pretend joust with the rest of the boys, and what was more was she had  _ fun  _ when she got to pretend she was a knight of the kingsguard. She laughed, she smiled, she giggled, she didn’t even mind when she got mud on her boots. Until Tywin would catch her and shout at her, telling her that she was a girl, that girl can’t be knights, how inappropriate it was that she was dressed in her brother's clothes and playing with the sons of his bannermen. All the while Jaime just stood there, looking down at the ground with a guilty look on his eye but never defending her, never telling Tywin that it had been his idea to have Cersei dress in his clothes so she could play with him and his friends in the first place.

But here that  **_woman_ ** stood, knighted by her brother, the same man who allowed Tywin to punish Cersei for playing the same part the creature was (and she was just a girl at that, not a grown woman.) Brienne got to be rewarded for the same thing Jaime used to let their father degrade Cersei for.

_ I could take it away from her _ , she thought bitterly.  _ I’m still a queen, I can still strip someone of their honors, I could take away ‘her greatest gift’.  _ But Jaime would just knight her again and it would accomplish nothing but getting her twin upset at her. 

With an angry huff Cersei flopped against her chair, crossing her arms across her chest and waiting for the creature's return. The fire was burning hot and bright and outside it was raining hard, a much needed reprieve for the peasants, she was sure. The heavy waters would help settle the dust and ash that still choked the air. 

Something beside Cersei caught the light of the high flames, a ruby in the hilt of the sword the creature had been sharpening. A ruby was embedded into the gold and three golden lions made up the hilt. Furrowing her brow, she reached down and grasped the hilt, groaning as she lifted it. It was heavy, near as big as a bastard sword, and big as well, Cersei struggled to lift it upright to examine it. The hilt was Lannister gold and the ruby in the center was as big around as any in her jewelry, surrounded by four tiny white pearls. It was a beautiful weapon. Stunning, if Cersei was being honest, and obviously well taken care of.

It was also her family's sword.

She noticed it on Jaime’s sword belt years ago and he was cold when asked about it. A waste of good steel, he called their father's gift, a gift that was supposed to go to their children and their children after them. Cersei never saw it again after that but she just assumed it was put up someplace on a mantle somewhere, especially since Jaime had balked at the idea of using it now that his sword hand was gone. 

Instead he picked up Joffrey's sword after his death, a smaller weapon and easier for his offhand to carry he explained when Cersei asked why he used that the one with the stag decor and not the Lannister one, and Tommen wasn’t well versed in swords enough to carry such a weapon just yet. But, Cersei suddenly recalled as she twisted the sword in her hand, he had a look of nervous guilt on his face when he talked about the golden jilted sword that she couldn’t explain at the time, but now… now it made sense.

Her hand clenched the golden hilt so tight her knuckles turned white. The door opened and in walked Brienne with an arm full of yellow apples, blood oranges, and green grapes.

“I hope this suffices, Your Grace,” Brienne said as she kicked the door shut behind her. “It was all she… had,” she trailed off when she caught sight of what Cersei had in her hand. “That’s mine,” she said in a far more possessive tone then the queen thought she was capable of.

“You’re a thief,” the lioness hissed as she stood, sword in hand. The point immediately fell to the ground with a heavy thud. “This is my family's sword, my father gave it to Jaime to pass down to his children. You stole it from him.”

“Jaime gave it to me _. _ ”

“You’re lying. He wouldn’t give away a priceless valerian steel sword to a cow like you.”

“You don’t know your brother.”

“How dare you,” Cersei snarled, a crueler statement she couldn’t have imagined being told. Jaime was her other half, her twin, she knew him better than anyone. Including this deformed creature. 

“He gave me the sword and the armor as a gift,” she continued as if she hadn’t heard the malice in the queen's voice. A deep breath and then, “to protect Sansa.”

Cersei laughed, cold and humorless. “Yes my brother gave you a Lannister sword to protect his family's sworn enemy, a woman accused of killing his son at that.” She waited for the flinch from the confirmation but it never came. The creature must have believed the rumors. “You stole the sword, you probably stole the armor as well. Despite me no longer sitting on the throne I am still the  _ queen,  _ and I am still allowed to punish thieves.”

“I’m not a thief!” she cried. “Jaime gave me the sword, I named it Oathkeeper for him! He even added sun bursts on the scabbard for me!”

“You’re lying!”

“She’s not.”

Both women whipped towards the voice that came from the bed. His emerald eyes were halfway open and his breath was labored but he was awake. “The sword is hers. It’ll always be hers.”

“Jaime,” Cersei breathed, letting the steel fall to the ground. Tears blinded her as she raced over to him and wrapped her arms around him, nuzzling his neck and ignoring the painful groan. “I missed you,” she whispered in a trembling voice that she only allowed him to hear. “So much. So much.”

“How do you feel?” the creature's voice broke the moment, just as shaking as hers only she wouldn’t be allowed to placate her feelings by embracing the man before her. 

“Like Seven Hells.” He glanced around the room, groaning softly. Cersei still has yet to release him. “Where am I?”

“We’re at an inn on the western-most edge of the city, it wasn’t touched by Daenerys,” Brienne answered. “So far there’s been no soldiers or anything coming this way.”

“How did I get here?”

“I dragged you,” Cersei answered quickly. She ignored the look the creature gave her as she stroked his greying mane. “You passed out on the beach and I dragged you here to safety before I sowed your wound. I’ve been brewing you a tea I learned from Qyburn to help heal you.”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Brienne bow her head but wisely decided to keep silent. Tears filled Jaime’s eyes and for a moment Cersei thought they might have been tears of gratitude.

“Please stop with the lying,” he begged her, dashing her hopes. “Please, Cersei, no more. I can’t handle anymore lies right now, not from you. Just tell me the truth.”

She pursed her lips at her brother before she cleared her throat. “Lady Brienne carried you to safety and stitched you up. She’s been making you this tea to help you but I’ve stayed awake with you,” she added quickly when she saw Jaime look towards a blushing Brienne and gift her a soft smile. 

“Thank you, Brienne,” he said with a tenderness that made the queen nauseous. 

The creature's pale flesh burned brighter. “You would have done the same for me,” she muttered, staring at the floor.

“Mmm. So the life debt is back to me then?”

The corners of her thick lips tugged upwards. “I suppose so.”

Cersei cleared her throat, loudly, gaining Jaime’s attention back to her. “A dragon sits on the Iron Throne again,” she told him. “Eventually she’ll realize we’re not crushed beneath the Red Keep and come looking for us.”

“The Queen is right,” Brienne added. “We can’t stay here much longer. We can give you a day or two to rest but we’re going to have to eventually leave Westeros.”

Cersei hoped Jaime would argue and tell the cow that she wouldn’t be coming with them, that the lions could handle the sailing on their own but he did no such thing. He actually looked grateful that the beast decided to tag along, a fact that didn’t escape the blonde maid. 

Brienne cleared her throat after a moment of silence and went over and grabbed the makeshift bandages but Cersei snatched them from her mannish hands. “I’ll do it,” she snapped. “You need a gentle woman’s touch for this.”

Jaime frowned at his twin but said nothing as Cersei changed his bandages. Most of the crimson had faded away which she hoped meant the infection was receding. When she was finished Cersei glances over at Brienne for a moment before she reached down and kissed Jaime. 

His breath was sour, nearly overwhelming her with the taste of garlic and ginger and his lips were dried and chapped but she didn’t care, she was hungry for him. She buried her hands in his hair and gave it a sharp tug, growling low in her throat as she bit his lip, a fire raging to life inside the queen as her lion hissed in pain.

“Cersei, wait,” he muttered against her lips. She ignored him, reaching down between his legs to find him limp but she knew exactly how to make him give her his full undivided attention. She started to stroke him, running her sharp nails against his cock and making him shudder in desire and pain as she did. “I said stop,” he said a bit more forcefully in a tone that let her know she wasn’t just playing around. 

Cersei pulled away from him, brow furrowed in confusion before she remembered there was someone else in the room. She snickered as she turned around and saw Brienne with her back turned to them and busting herself with organizing the bandages, her blush traveling well past her neck and burning so hot it might have started a fire.

“It’s fine,” Cersei said with a glint in her green eyes. “The creature can watch if she wants. She might be able to pick up some pointers for whatever unlucky man can stomach fucking her.”

“Knock it off,” he ordered, not asked, but ordered the queen with a forcefulness he would when she would torment Tyrion. 

It hasn’t worked then, and it wouldn’t work now. 

She raised a perfectly manicured brow in his direction. “Oh so you’ll fuck me in front of our sons corpse but kissing your lover in front of your former captor is too much for you?”

_ That did it, _ Cersei thought to herself with a smirk. Jaime’s eyes went wide with shock and she saw Brienne whip towards them, thick jaw dropped to the floor. 

“You did  _ what? _ ” the tall woman breathed, disgust dripping off of every syllable. This time it was Jaime’s turn to blush as crimson as their sigil. 

“He didn’t tell you?” Cersei asked in mock confusion. “The white knight you’re so in love with, the good man you feel is beyond reproach? He fucked his twin in front of our son's corpse in the Great Sept. My moons blood was on me but he didn’t care, nor did he care when I pleaded with him to stop, telling him over and over that it wasn’t right. But by the end of it I was gasping out his name and  _ begging  _ him to fuck me harder.”

The woman had turned a sickly shade of green. The look she was giving Jaime was one of absolute loathing and disgust and, what was sure to hurt her brother the worst, absolute and unyielding disappointment. Without a word the creature picked up the sword Jaime claimed was her and stormed off, slamming the door behind her. The moment the latch clicked, Cersei turned towards her brother and smiled.

“Well,” she purred, ignoring the hateful look he was giving her. “Now that we’re finally alone; how about you and I talk?”


	6. Chapter 6

“You’re a hateful woman,” the lion hissed after the door slammed shut. “A vile,  _ hateful _ woman!”

Cersei feigned her innocence as best she could. “How was I to know you didn’t tell the cow you fucked me in the sept?”

“Don’t start, Cersei!” he barked while she poured them each a glass of wine. “You hurt her!”

“ _ I _ hurt her?” His twin scoffed. “I’m not the one allowing her to be convinced you’re something you’re not. I lifted the scales from her eyes; nothing more.” 

Jaime watched her as she walked to the bed, comely hips keeping his sight glued to her. Even without trying, even without being aware of it, every step Cersei took was sex and seduction. A lioness in the wilderness, always on the prowl and looking for her next meal.

Brienne’s gait held the same sense of confidence as his twins but rather than dripping with a sensual sense of self, the knight's walk was bold, determined, strong. As small as she often tried to make herself, when she walked; Brienne didn’t care how much space she took up.

Cersei handed Jaime a cup of wine and went to take a sip of her own. “Are you sure you should be drinking that?” he asked, eyeing the sloshing red liquid uneasily.

The tone alone if not the question was a challenge if ever he heard one. “Why do you care?”

“Because you’re carrying my child.”

A warmth spread throughout his chest and of its own volition a lazy smile happened upon his face. His child. Jaime’s child. Cersei was carrying his child and more than that she promised him she would name him the father. Their child would be named Lannister, and Jaime would hold him.

Hateful judgements from  _ anyone _ be damned.

“Huh.” Cersei swirled the wine in the glass, some of it sloshing over the side. “Funny how you didn’t care much about him or me when you went off to that frozen wasteland and decided to stay there.”

Any glowing softness faded as quickly as it came. “I didn’t have a choice, Cersei.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Dear Brother,” she spat, venom dripping from every word. “You ALWAYS had a choice. Lord of Casterly Rock or a knight of the Kingsguard. Tommen's Hand or commander of our armies.” 

“I would have been as bad a politician as you,” he threw back. “Although I wouldn’t have given a group of religious fanatics who hate me an army and power over the city so I’m already ahead of the curve on that one.”

Jaime didn’t even bother lifting his hand to block the slap. He was just grateful she wasn’t wearing her ring. “Hit me as much as you want, it doesn’t change the facts that I had to go North. I made a promise.”

“And what about your promise to me? You swore never to betray me.”

“For the love of the Mother and for the last time, I didn’t betray you!”

“When you made the choice to ride North and fight alongside my enemies,” she answered as sharp as steel, “you betrayed me as your Queen. When you left me here alone with no allies and no family you betrayed me as your sister and as the last members of our House. And when you fucked that disgusting creature you betrayed me as your lover. It might be easier to ask you to remember the ways in which you  _ haven’t _ betrayed me.”

“You threatened to  _ kill me _ !” he shouted. “Remember that little nod you gave to Clegane? Because I certainly do. Or if the wine you’ve been soaking in has rendered your memory bad, perhaps you’ll remember just four weeks ago when you sent Bronn with a crossbow to murder me and my brother!”

She didn’t so much as blink. “Traitors deserve to die a traitor's death.”

“I’m not a traitor, Cersei! I went North because I swore a vow to fight for the living. I fought beside your enemies because that war went beyond houses and honor and oaths. I was trying to be a good man, to be a knight worthy of the title. And I- me and Brienne…” 

Jaime’s voice finally faltered. He would not lie on her, he would not demean and diminish what he and Brienne shared together but he had to be careful. If Cersei knew that the tall knight occupied a spot in his heart right alongside his twin… His sweet sister would deliver him and Brienne to the Dragon Queen herself and use her last request to watch them both burn. “I-... I care for her,” he finally settled on, deciding on the safest and least confusing way of describing the relationship. “I stayed in Winterfell with Brienne because I care for her, but I came back for you.”

Cersei’s eyes grew as large as he’d ever seen them before and as bright as wildfire but twice as deadly. “So it’s true then.”  **_Shit_ ** _.  _ “You fucked the Maid of Tarth. Or the ‘former maid’, I suppose would be a more appropriate term for the little whore.”

“Don’t call her that,” he ordered, but he might as well have commanded the wall to sing.

“What else would you call someone who fucks a man outside of the bonds of marriage?”

“Your Grace.”

She slapped him again. Jaime rubbed his jaw, trying to massage the sharp sting away. “I see I need a thicker beard, to cushion me against my queens caresses.”

Cersei narrowed her eyes at the bed bound man before she grabbed his face, her nails digging into his flesh. 

“How many times?” she snarled in his ear, wasting no time in biting the fleshy part of the lobe and leaving him hissing in pain.

“Cersei-.” Jaime growled low in his throat as she yanked his shaggy mane so far back his neck felt as if it might snap. His cock began to stir as she stared down at him.

“How. Many. Times?”

He looked her dead in her eyes, emeralds coming together and locking on one another as they had a thousand times before. “I lost count.”

She slapped him again before she grabbed his face and kissed him. Hard, biting his lip so hard she drew blood. Jaime yanked his head away but Cersei brought it back to her and kissed him again, hungry and wanting. Her tongue ran over the tiny indents she just made, licking the blood and moaning in his mouth as if the act was taking life from him and giving it to her.

He would have drained his whole body willingly at that point. 

“Be gentle,” he reminded her. His plea was rewarded with a humorless laugh. 

“You disgust me,” his golden twin snarled as she buried her face in the crock of his neck and began sucking and kissing and biting, marking him as her own. “A treasonous crippled lion who fucked an ugly whore in a frozen wasteland.”

He grabbed hold of her hair and yanked it back so she was looking at him again. “Insult her again,” he warned her, a growl low in his throat. “And we’re done.”

Rather than fight him off Cersei’s hand immediately went to his throat. She squeezed just hard enough that he could feel the indents of her fingers. “You don’t get to decide when we’re done,” she spat. “You don’t make that fucking choice. You belong to  _ me _ , do you understand?” Cersei squeezed his throat tighter. “No one else.”

Jaime could have cum right then.

She threw off the blankets and quickly went to work on pulling down his breeches, maneuvering them over his rock hard cock that was already dripping wet with precum. She began to rub him almost painfully hard and Jaime groaned, throwing his head back as she worked her soft dainty hand over his smooth shaft. Just as before her nails dragged along his cock, but rather than tell her to stop he begged and begged and begged for more. 

“You don’t deserve this,” Cersei growled before she spat on his dick and immediately lowered her head, taking nearly every inch of his manhood inside her warm wet mouth. His hand buried itself in her short golden hair, alternating between sharp pulling and gentle caresses. She used the flat broad side of her tongue to lick as her head bobbed up and down, up and down, up and down, and used the end to run along the sensitive underside and render him speechless.

Her hand covered what her mouth couldn’t handle, and she twisted and jerked up and down, up and down, while her other reached behind him and pawed at his ass. At one point she took her hand away from his base and instead she took all of him in, pressing her nose against his hard stomach and gagging just slightly before pulling back.

He was utterly and completely hopeless and helpless, completely at her disposal. That was why she enjoyed this act so much. Not for Jaime’s enjoyment but she enjoyed rendering him helpless and utterly at her mercy. She decided how long, how short, how slow, how fast… Cersei was in complete power in this position, and what was more, was she absolutely knew it.

Her lips and mouth knew him well, and her tongue and him were old friends. Every moment he was inside her, every purr she made low in her throat or the way her teeth JUST scraped the smooth sensitive flesh or a thousand other things she did there was an old comfortable familiarity but it all felt so new at the same time.

Had it really been so long since he’d been with her? 

When he felt a tightness and he started to jerk into her mouth, doing his best to ignore the pain in his side, Cersei grabbed his flesh hand and put it on her throat so he could feel her swallow. That act alone made him cum and he gasped and moaned his sweet sister's name as his seed emptied into her warm mouth. Cersei swallowed and licked every single drop, releasing him with a wet * _ smack _ *. She climbed into the bed and the two twins wrapped their arms around one another. Surprisingly gentle she rested her head on his chest, being uncharacteristically careful of his injury. He began stroking her soft blonde hair. 

“If you ever touch her again,” Cersei said without looking up at him as she snuggled in closer. “I’ll chop off your cock and make you watch as I burn that ugly cunt alive.”

Jaime told himself it was hyperbole, that she was speaking the same nonsense all spurred women say until she turned to look up at him and he saw the cold steeliness in her bright green eyes. “Don’t ever betray me again. This is your last chance.”

She kissed his frozen lips before she lowered her head onto his chest again and, after a moment he resumed the slow smooth strokes of her hair.

“Threaten Brienne again,” he said without missing a beat. “And I won’t harm you but I will leave you. You can figure a way out of this city on your own.”

“We both know you’d come running back.”

“Keep testing me, Cersei. One day you might find my legs work as well as my sword hand.”

Neither one spoke after that. Only the crackling of the fire interrupted their heavy silence. After a long while the door opened and Brienne walked back in, eyes downward and ignoring the two twins tangled together in the bed. The smell of sex was still thick in the air and his face burned red with shame, but not nearly as much as it should have. 

“I think it might be better if I got my own room,” the tall blonde muttered. “I already talked to the innkeep, there’s a free one right down the hall.”

“Brienne-,” Jaime sighed, moving to stand up but Cersei held him fast.

“Let her go,” his sister urged. Her lips curved into a wickedly sinful smile that didn’t quite meet her eyes. “It’ll give us some privacy.”

“Besides, I haven’t slept in a bed since Winterfell.”

“That didn’t bother you when we were on the road,” Jaime said.

“I know I just-... I think this’ll be better for everyone.”

Jaime’s face fell as he watched her turn on the heel of her mud stained boot and walk out. Without a word Cersei stood up and followed her out, both of them ignoring Jaime begging for both his sister and his protector to return to the room and just leave it alone. When Cersei slammed the door behind her Jaime huffed and fell back against the pillow, firmly deciding to save himself any more troubles and to swear off all blondes from this day, until the last.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So let’s talk about that last chapter that got a few of you upset. It’s in the tags that this fic will be pro Cersei AND pro Brienne. It’s in the tags that Brienne and Jaime will remain friends. You don’t let your sister/lover threaten to burn your friend alive, especially not a friend you’ve been through a literal apocalypse with and then had a romantic relationship with (and notice how Cersei immediately called his bluff? She knows he isn’t going to actually leave.)   
> It’s book canon (‘You are speaking of a Highborn Lady, Ser. Call her by her name. Call her Brienne’) and show canon (‘that’s NOT your concern!’) that Jaime gets upset when Brienne gets insulted and he stands up for her. It is also canon he was there in Winterfell for a while, it wasn’t just one night, they had a relationship. Of course he’s gonna care about her. Just because he loves Cersei more doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about Brienne too. Not more than, but too. Also let’s not forget Brienne just saved him and he owes his life to her.   
> I’m sorry if this fic wasn’t what yall thought it would be but… I mean it’s in the tags.

“Tarth! Tarth!”

“I’m not really in the mood for a conversation, Your Grace,” Brienne replied as sharp as the sword at her hip without turning back around to face her. “Go back to your brother, I’m sure he’d be very interested in speaking with you.”

Cersei stormed out in front of her, green eyes bright as wildfire and ten times as dangerous. “I am your  **_queen_ ** ,” she snarled low in her throat, craning her neck up to look at the knight. “I do not care what whore sits on my throne, I am the queen and I will not be treated with disrespect, least of all from a freak of nature like yourself.”

The insult barely seemed to phase her. Brienne just looked down at Cersei, big blue eyes full of the loathing and contempt she wouldn’t dare speak. “Apologies, Your Grace, I meant no disrespect. It’s been a long few days and I would like to go to my room and rest.”

“Oh I’m sure it has been. Watching the man you love, the man you fucked with another woman… It must be  **_exhausting_ ** _.” _

Brienne swallowed hard. “You know.”

“Did you really think you could hide it from me? That I wouldn’t find out your little secret?” Cersei took a bold step towards her. Every word was salivating with venom. “He was picturing me. Jaime told me. He said he imagined it was my lips he was kissing, my name he wanted to moan, my body he wanted to touch. He felt sorry for you so he gave you what you wanted, what he knew no other man could ever stomach. You were nothing more than a sad desperate pity fuck.”

“You’re lying.” The way the knights voice trembled, just there at the edge of her words, almost,  _ almost _ made Cersei feel sorry for her. “Besides even-...” She blinked the tears from her eyes. “Even if that is true Jaime would never say that, not to you.”

“My brother tells me everything, Creature.”

“No he doesn’t. You don’t know him as well as you think you do. Perhaps I don’t know him either, but my one consolation in this situation is neither do you.”

Cersei had mapped out every crevice of his body with her hands and lips since they were three and ten, she knew how to read his every expression in the bedroom and out. She knew that her brother was the one who gave Tommen Ser Pounce and Myrcella Lady Purr, she knew that he was the one who convinced their father to give the loathsome little imp a chance to take the black when he was on trial, she knew how he used to cry himself to sleep when he first joined the Kingsguard when Aerys fucked his pretty little wife a bit rough and there was nothing Jaime could do to save her, just as he knew the first few months of marriage to Robert Cersei would do the same.

The queen knew Jaime went away inside when he was faced with situations he would rather not deal with, she knew how loathe he thought the nickname ‘Kingslayer’ and he knew that she would never, not even in an argument, use that term to describe him. She would scream, cry, manipulate, seduce, insult and all other manners of things to get her way when it came to him; but she would not label him that. 

She knew her brother better than anyone alive, just as he knew Cersei. And this abomination, this freak who was neither a son or daughter dared to insinuate that the queen didn’t know her other half. 

Cersei held Brienne's sight for a long moment, neither of them breathing or blinking before she slapped her, hard, across the face. The pale white surprisingly smooth skin made the crimson hand mark standout all the more.

“You get us to Pentos,” the queen told the shocked woman in a dangerously quiet voice. “You get us across the narrow sea and then you leave. You never see Jaime again, you never speak to him again, you never so much as glance in his direction or I will kill you. Slowly. Intimately. In ways only women know to fear.” 

Cersei could still taste her brother's salty seed on her lips, she could still taste the cock she had reclaimed for her own. She lurched forward and kissed the Tarth woman hard, slamming her lips against hers. It lasted less than half a second, not even, before Brienne cried out and pushed Cersei away. She would have fallen to the floor had she not grabbed onto the wall to keep herself steady.

“What the FUCK is wrong with you?!” the knight screamed, one hand gripping the hilt of her sword while the other wiped at her plump lips, eyes wide and full of confusion and fury. In the distance Jaime’s voice called out, demanding to know what had happened. 

“That is the last time you will ever taste him,” Cersei said coldly, watching as the realization of what she was saying sank in. “Sleep well. Tomorrow you take us to Essos.”

Wordlessly Cersei made her way back to her and Jaime’s chambers, a smile on her face. When he asked what the screaming had been about and if Brienne was alright she simply cupped his face in her hands and kissed him. It was soft and slow, a lover's gentle sigh of wind, the way she was sure the creature had kissed him. His hand came up and covered hers, interlocking their fingers together and when she was done Cersei rested her head against his.

“Jaime,” she breathed, running her hands through his shaggy hair. “I missed you. So much.”

“I missed you too,” he told her.

“You can’t ever leave me. Not again. Not now, not ever.”

“I won't.” He kissed her again as she went to lay down beside him, arms wrapping around him, the question forgotten. “I won’t, Cersei, I swear it. I swear it.”

The next morning after they broke their fast Brienne came to the room, dressed in her armor, avoiding the queen entirely and holding something wrapped in an old cloak. She asked if Jaime was well enough to walk down to the beach to where, hopefully, the dinghy was still hidden amongst the rocks. He said he was and it was then that Brienne handed him the cloak and when he unwrapped the parcel there was his scabbard and sword; Widow's Wail, their oldest boy named it, the twin to the one the creature carried on her hip.

“When I went back to the camp I looked for yours as well,” Brienne answered as Jaime gaped at the Valerian steel. “I don’t think the Unsullied knew how valuable they were.”

“You could have been killed. What if you had been caught?”

“It wouldn’t be right to go back for mine and not yours.”

Jaime sighed before he looked at Cersei. “Would you give us a moment? Please?”

The look the queen gave her brother was one of absolute loathing but she just told them to hurry up and left the room.

And then promptly put her ear to the door so she could hear what they were saying to one another.

“You don’t have to do this, Brienne.” His voice was full of far more affection then she could have ever imagined her brother speaking to someone who wasn’t his twin.

“That sword defended Winterfell,” Brienne answered. “It defended the living. It deserves to be wielded by an honorable man.”

“I’m talking about coming with us. I know how hard this all must be for you, I know my sister is… A difficult woman to get along with,” he settled on. “You don’t need to put yourself through that just for me.”

“You told me once on the way down to Kings Landing the first time to be courteous as it concerns her, and I’ve done my best to honor that,” Brienne answered and Cersei’s heart did a flutter. So Jaime did tell the great cow to watch what she said about her. “So I’ll hold my tongue regarding your sister. But I promised that I would see you and her safe, and I intend to honor that promise.”

“You’re putting yourself through hell all for a promise.”

“No more than what you went through.”

She could hear the smile on his lips. “You’re comparing spending time with Cersei to fighting the army of the dead?”

“I’m, no- I- of course not-,” the creature stammered out and Jaime laughed. “I’m just saying we both made promises and we both followed through, no matter what we needed to go through to keep it. You’re injured, she’s not a fighter in any physical sense of the word, you two won’t make it three feet without me. I mean no offense, but you know what I say is true. Besides I can’t go back North. Lady Sansa won’t ever trust me again, and Tarth will be the first place Daenerys looks for me.” 

Cersei could hear the utter depression and melancholy in her voice. Jaime must have too because he muttered out how sorry he was that he dragged her into this. “I’m not,” she told him rather fiercely. Her tone softened, equaling that of a maid who might talk to her lover. “You’re alive. That’s all that matters to me. Your heart may not belong to me, but it’s beating. That’s the only thing I care about.”

Cersei rolled her eyes at the sickening sentimentality and was about to walk back in when she heard low mutterings coming from the stairway. Slowly, she crept towards the sounds, peeking her head around the hallway to look down at what was causing the noise.

Her heart jumped into her throat when she saw four Unsullied and three Dothraki conversing with the innkeep, all seven armed to the teeth.

_ Shit. _

Cersei ran down the hallway, throwing open the door and slamming it shut, locking it behind her. “We need to leave,” she hissed at the two befuddled knights. “We need to leave now!”

“Why? Cersei what’s going on?” asked Jaime as she made her way over to Brienne's pack and dumped whatever food they had lying about in it along with the bandages and sowing kit.

“Unsullied,” she answered in a hurried whisper, throwing the pack at Brienne. “And Dothraki, they're talking to the innkeep right now.”

Brienne gripped the hilt of her sword. “Are you sure they’re here for us?”

“No; Daenerys sent four of her eunuchs and three of her savages here to arrest the pickpocket next door.”

Jaime and the creature shared a look, having a wordless conversation and infuriating the queen. It used to be only Cersei could tell what her brother was thinking with a mere glance but now…

“No,” Jaime said sharply from the sick bed. “Brienne, no, you’re not going to go seven on one! You don’t stand a chance!”

“No chance,” she drew her sword, “and no choice.”

“Bloody wench, you’re going to get yourself killed!” he barked, throwing the covers off and standing up, clutching his still tender side.

“I lower you down as far as I can then you catch the queen,” she said as she crossed the room to open the window, ignoring his protests. “You make your way to the boat, Your Grace, you’re going to have to paddle to Essos.”

They heard heavy footsteps on the stairs. “I’ve never rowed a boat before in my life!”

“No time like the present to learn.”

“Brienne!”

“I swore an oath,” she insisted stubbornly. “To keep you and the queen safe. If this is how it has to be done, so be it.”

“No!” The shout didn’t come from Jaime but from his twin, and both knights turned to look at her. “You will not leave me to navigate the seas on some little rotten waterlogged dinghy just so you can play the role of martyr!” 

Her face went an ugly splotchy red. “That’s not what this is about.”

“That is EXACTLY what this is about! You get to go out in a blaze of glory fighting against the dragon queens forces defending the man you love so he can make his gallant escape. It’s a pathetic attempt to end up in a song, but I swear to the Seven you will not leave us to die just so you can be named a hero when you’re gone!” The footsteps were getting closer. “Now.” Cersei smoothed out the wrinkles in her gown. “Jaime is going to lower you down as far as he can, you will catch me and then him because I don’t trust you to come after him.”

“He isn’t strong enough to lower me down, he’s hurt,” Brienne protested.

“Then I guess you’re going to have a pretty rough landing.”

The tall blonde glared at the queen for a moment before she, finally, sheathed her sword and stormed over to the window. She put one obscenely long leg through when Jaime called for her to stop.

“I’m strong enough,” he said, and, for some reason, Cersei swore she saw a blush paint the creature's pale face red. He grabbed the blonde’s calloused rough hand and she took hold of his flesh and golden ones as he lowered her down as far as he could. Cersei couldn’t see his face but she could tell he was grimacing in pain at the weight he had to hold as he reached out the window as far as he could go to lessen the height she had to fall.

_ Good. Let the creature cause him hurt for once. _

Jaime let go and a moment later there was a heavy crash outside the window. Cersei raced to it and saw, her stomach clenching, a three story drop and Brienne, shaking but otherwise unharmed, picking herself up off the ground. 

A cold sweat broke out on her brow and her tongue was thick and heavy in her mouth. Was that what Tommen saw the last moments of his life? The rushing street coming up to meet him? What if the creature didn’t catch her? What if her body became broken and bent just as her little boys had been?

“I can’t do it,” she whispered, fear clutching at her heart as she backed away from the window. “Jaime, I can’t.”

“Cersei, I can't fight them,” he admitted. “There’s no other way out but the window. You need to go.”

“I can’t. I can’t, what if she doesn’t catch me?”

“She will.” 

“She won’t. Brienne hates me, she hates me, Jaime, she… Tommen, I- he… I can’t do it, Jaime, please.”

“Cersei, listen to me.” He buried his flesh hand in her golden hair. “I will not let anything happen to you. I swear it. Do you trust me?”

“Jaime-.”

“Do you trust me?” She nodded. “Then you need to trust her. Please. I came into this world with me holding onto your foot, let me start this new life with me holding onto your hand.”

A watery smile curled her lips upwards. “That's all rather sappy, Ser.”

“I’ll be as sappy as my queen needs me to be if it keeps her safe,” he whispered before he pressed his lips against hers. Jaime took hold of her hand and with a deep breath, she let him lead her to the window. “Close your eyes, he warned as one shaking leg went out, and then another. “Don’t open them.”

“I’m scared,” she whispered, a truth she would only admit to her twin as she sat on the edge of the window ledge.

“I know. But you need to be brave for Loreon.”

“Loreon?”

He smiled and glanced down at her stomach. “Thought it might be nice to christen the first of our pride to bear the name Lannister after the first true Lannister king.”

Cersei melted at his words. “Not just Loreon,” she said in a voice that was uncharacteristically tender. “Our son will be named for a king.” She reached out and cupped his face with her hand, gently brushing the short sharp stubble with her thumb. “And the man he will claim as his father from his first day, until his last. He will be called Loreon Jaime of House Lannister, and every man alive will know who sired him.”

Her brother's eyes grew wet. He leaned forward and kissed her again, passionate, wanting, intense. He was pouring a thousand gratitudes and praises for giving him the gift she knew he wanted since his seed first quickened in her womb to give them Joffrey into his kiss.

For a moment Cersei forgot everything. The soldiers racing up the stairs, the tall blonde creature far below, the dragon queen, the war, the loss of her power… She forgot everything but her other half and the cub growing inside her.

Their sweet little Loreon.

A pounding on the door down the hall, Brienne’s former room, broke them apart and Cersei clutched at her brother, eyes wide. 

“You need to go,” he said sternly, no longer speaking like a poet or a singer but rather a commander. “Now, Cersei.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be fine, but you have to go  _ now _ .”

With no more delay, Cersei took hold of her brothers hands, flesh and gold alike, and she let him lower her out the window. Her heart slammed against her ribs and her breath caught in her throat as she kicked at nothing but empty air.

“On the count of three,” he said, leaning as far out as he could. “One. Two. Three.”

They both let go, and Cersei screamed.

She was falling, falling, falling, the cold air whipping through her as if it were trying to push her back up while stinging her eyes. It was taking too long, she had been falling too long. Brienne hadn’t caught her, Cersei was going to keep falling until she hit the ground just like Tommen had.

And then it stopped. The armor encased arms she fell into sent a shudder throughout her body and made her teeth chatter but they were unyielding, strong. Cersei opened her eyes and looked up at the woman who caught her. 

The mid morning sun made her pale yellow hair shine and made her blue eyes even more dazzling, if that were even more possible. She looked hard, and strong but the glow of the soft daylight made her appear rather womanly as well.

In this light she could almost be a beauty, Cersei decided. In this light she could almost be a knight.

Brienne steadied her on her feet before they both turned to look back up at Jaime who was, slowly, lowering himself out of the window as agile as a one handed man at his age could. 

“One,” they heard him whisper to himself. “Two. Three!” Cersei screamed again as Jaime fell even further then she had. He crashed into Brienne’s waiting arms just as Cersei had but his weight plus the added distance caused her to stumble and fall to her knees and she nearly dropped him.

“Are you alright?” Brienne asked the lion and he nodded, groaning in pain as she helped him stand.

“I’m fine,” he gasped, clutching his side and leaning against her for support. His green eyes looked between the two. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Ser Jaime,” Brienne said the same time Cersei answered with, “yes now let’s hurry.”

There was a loud crash from the now abandoned room above, the sound of a door being kicked in. The three of them raced into an alley and flattened themselves up against the bricks. Cersei risked a glance and saw a Dothraki peering out the window, looking up and down the street for the fugitives. 

“It’s clear,” Cersei said when he put his head back in. “We need to leave.”

The streets were full to bursting, as they often were since the burning. Homeless half burned peasants looking for bread, former lords, their once soft smooth uncalloused skin not red and blackened, reduced to begging strangers for a cup of water, mothers screaming for anyone to aid the babies that were succumbing to their injuries from that day, vile mad men with weeping sores raping anything that moved and what were once good soldiers too dazed to care.

It was madness. Chaos, insanity like Cersei has never imagined, and it also stunk. Of course the city had always smelled like cum and death and shit but this had a different smell, one the queen would never forget; burning flesh. In the distance the Red Keep was in utter disrepair, whole walls gone, towers missing, smoke and ash still rose from sole places. On the remaining walls hung the three headed dragon banners that had been there before the stag and lion. 

It sickened the queen to her very core.

“Stay close to me,” Jaime muttered to Cersei as a man eyed the queen with loathing and lust, and she clung to her knight as the three of them made their way through the city down to the hidden spot on the beach their brother told them to go a week ago, praying it would still be there.

Like everything else in Cersei’s life, her prayers were answered, but at a cost.

The dinghy was there, just where Tyrion said it would be. But two Northern soldiers and an Unsullied sat guarding it. 

A large burly northerner noticed them first and stood quickly. The way his brown piggy eyes looked at her and the smile that showed several brown and rotting teeth made her flinch.

“The queen knew you’d turn up here eventually,” he said as he stood, sword in hand. His companions followed suit. “Turns out the dragon was right. Although she bet you’d be half crushed, half burnt, ugly as sin… but you’re still quite the beauty.” 

“Enough talk,” the unsullied said in his strong accent. “Arrest them, take them to the queen.”

“Now hang on…” The Northerner leered at the lioness. “Queen Daenerys didn’t say we couldn’t have a bit o’ fun before we took her in…”

The knights unsheathed their twin swords at the same time. Jaime immediately pushed Cersei behind him and Brienne moved to his right, to be the hand he lost for her.

“Are you sure you want to die so far away from home?” Jaime asked, and no one would mistake the lions growl hidden under the purr. He was a cat playing with his food before he ate it. “For a queen who’d sooner burn you then look at you? Doesn’t sound very smart to me but then again I am talking to a man who worships trees.”

“Take your men and go,” Brienne ordered, with none of the dangerous playfulness Jaime spoke with. She was all business. “You don’t need to die here.”

“How about you don’t tell me what to do, Kingslayers whore?” The man laughed as he looked from Cersei back to Brienne, “my apologies, I should probably clarify which one of you I’m speaking to!”

“Take your men,” she repeated slowly, ignoring the insult. “And go.”

His grin turned cold and dangerous. “Nah I don’t think I will. Instead how about after we kill the Kingslayer, me and my boy here,” he clapped the eager looking soldier beside him on the shoulder and they took a step towards them. “Take turns fucking that whore you’re protecting in every royal hole of hers before we drag her before the queen? Oh but don’t you worry your ugly little head, we’ll keep you alive long enough to do the same to you. Wouldn’t want you to feel left out.”

“No one will be fucking anyone!” the unsullied barked. “We are to take them to the queen, that’s it!”

“Oh piss off! Just because you ain’t got a cock doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t enjoy ours!” the northerner spat, and for one single solitary second, he took his eyes from the trio and turned towards the Unsullied instead.

The knights leapt forward and the fighting began. 

Cersei never much understood swordsmanship. She knew Jaime was considered a prodigy when he had two hands and she knew he could vanquish foes in less than half a heartbeat, but any fighting she ever watched was with blunt sparring swords from a padded seat on the tourney grounds. She never really understood how violent and in a way beautiful it was to see men fight, truly, fight, much less ones as accomplished as those two.

Every swing they made was graceful, and elegant, Jaime’s less so but even still it was almost breathtaking to behold up close, and more than that the two of them moved as one. Their bodies moved as one, every movement mirrored the other, one knew what the other would do a second before they did it and reacted accordingly. It was a powerful dance and a brutal fight and passionate lovemaking all at once and no foe could hope to stand against them. Steel rang and screamed and sparks flew as metal struck metal. 

Brienne was a loud fighter, obnoxiously loud, grunting and shouting with every swing while Jaime stayed silent but the look on his face as he fought set a fire in the queen's belly. The two of them made quick work of the small Northman, and then turned their attention on the eunuch and the Winterfell soldier

The queen's man swung his spear lightning quick, scraping it across her blue armor and showing the ground with sparks. He twisted it around in an arc and would have sliced her throat open but then there was Jaime stopping it in its tracks, and giving Brienne time to stick her valyrian steel though his gut and out the other side. Then they turned towards the leering man, only he wasn’t leering anymore and instead was baring his teeth like a rabid dog as he held his sword aloft.

“I’m gonna fuck you with that sword before I’m done, you bloody bitch,” he snarled at Brienne before he lept at her. Her steel caught him in the chest while Jaime’s caught him in the middle, both of them ripping through his flesh like a hot knife through butter and he fell to the ground, gasping for air as the blood leaked like a sieve.

“You shouldn’t grimace before you lunge,” Brienne said, pushing her disheveled mop of pale blonde hair out of her face. Jaime put the point of Widows Wail above the man’s heart. “It gives away the game.” 

The green eyed knight pushed the sword down with a soft grunt, and the man moved no more.

A thick silence hung heavy in the air. There was nothing but the sounds of their panting. Cersei watched as the two fighters looked at one another, eyes darkened with a sort of blood lust, and never before had she felt more out of place. She felt like she was intruding on something intimate, something close and personal that she had no right to be a part of. Cersei imagined her face looked more or less like the creatures had that first time the twins kissed in front of her. 

“We need to go,” she announced loudly, breaking whatever spell that seemed to have taken hold on her twin and his ugly little pet. “There could be more guards on their way down.”

Jaime nodded, not tearing his eyes from Brienne. “Agreed. The sooner the better.”

The creature let out a slow breath and a slower nod before she went to ready the boat. The moment she turned her back Jaime walked over to Cersei, emerald eyes dark and almost dangerous , wrapped his arm around her and kissed her, hard, tasting her tongue and devouring her lips. Cersei moaned into his mouth and clutched at his shirt, pulling him close enough that she could feel his cock hard against her thigh. 

“If she wasn’t here...” he growled low, and she was pleased to detect a note of frustration at the creature's presence. 

“I know,” the lioness purred, nibbling at his ear before she turned away, making sure to brush her leg up against his hardness. 

Brienne pulled the boat to the water's edge and, thankfully, Tyrion had gotten one that was large enough for the three of them. On either side were the two lions and Brienne was nestled in the middle between them where the oars were. As she pushed off into the narrow sea, the three of them all turned to look at the castle, at the blood stained shore, at the high grey rocks where Aegon first declared himself a king.

They all looked, and they knew they would never see their country again


	8. Chapter 8

“You need to apologize to her.”

“Brienne-.”

“You need to apologize.”

Cersei wasn’t willing to open her eyes as the motion of the boat swayed and rocked them back and forth, back and forth. 

They had spent the day in almost silence as the Tarth woman towed them further and further away from the shores of King’s Landing. She showed no signs of tiring and even beneath her clothes Cersei could see the long muscles in her arm stretch and tighten with every stroke of the oars. But even a creature as strong as her had to rest at some point, so they made a plan to stop at the tiny island beside the abandoned island of Dragonstone, rest there, make their way to some little summer island midway between the two continents before landing on the shores of Essos the day following. 

She was curled into a tiny ball in her end of the boat and had pulled her cloak around her tighter as their whispered words filled the eerie silence. A cold wind blew and she shuddered.

“‘He didn’t care when I pleaded with him to stop’,” Brienne repeated that queen's earlier words. “Jaime you… you hurt her.”

She sounded wounded, as if it had happened to her instead and Cersei rolled her eyes. The creature was so full of falseness it was almost sickening. No one had empathy for the woman the man you loved left you for. Cersei has been hurt by Robert her entire marriage and not a lick of empathy was to be had from anyone and that was how she preferred it. This way she was not expected to lie and mewl over others who wouldn’t do the same for her. It was all a ploy to make Jaime look at Brienne in a better light, that was all. The cow could lie and scheme as much as anyone and from the softness in her twins voice he was falling for it hook, line and sinker.

“I didn’t hurt her,” he argued. “It was… you wouldn’t understand.”

“She begged you to stop and you didn’t. How is that not hurting her? How is that any different from when Locke and his men planned to do to me?”

“It was NOT the same as that!” he barked. “Don’t you dare compare me to them! I would never hurt any woman the way they wanted to hurt you!” 

“Will you be quiet?” she hissed.

“Don’t shush me, you shush!”

“Don’t tell me to shush!”

“Then you don’t tell _me_ to shush!”

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

Cersei had to bite back a laugh at the back and fourth. They sounded more like siblings then she and Jaime did sometimes.

She heard him lean back against the edge of their tiny little boat. “You wouldn’t understand. I don’t even think I really understand me and her,” Jaime muttered. “I… I don’t know why I did that. She wouldn’t-... I missed her. I spent all that time trying to get back to her but she tells me ‘you took too long’. Then in the sept... I was just trying to give her some comfort, Brienne,” he said, desperate for her not to think badly of him and Cersei clenched her hand into a tight fist. 

Why did he care so much about what she thought of him? What did this woman have over Jaime that she could make him turn away from the man he was, to make him want to be a different person then who he was? It infuriated the queen. There was only one person whose opinion he should care about and that was his twins. 

“She wouldn’t let me comfort her,” he continued. “That’s all I wanted to do and I just… I don’t know.”

“You wanting to comfort her doesn’t mean you get to ignore her choices,” she shot back, Highborn voice full of judgement. 

“She also said she changed her mind. Did you miss that part? That by the end of it she was _begging_ me for it?” Cersei could just picture the crimson blush that crept up her pale skin. “It’s… if she had wanted me to stop, she would have made it clear. She didn’t, that's… it’s a thing we have, the two of us. She ignored me telling her no plenty of times as well.”

“She… she did that? To you? Jaime, I’m so sorry.”

Cersei rolled her eyes. Yes Jaime told her ‘no’ once or twice but she knew her brother would change his mind once they got into it, (and he did. Always.)

“It’s fine. That’s our dynamic Brienne. It’s not healthy and it’s not normal but it’s ours.” A beat and then, “are you gonna ask her to apologize to me now?”

“Unattractive as it is I rather like having my head attached to my shoulders.” He chuckled. “But I still think you should. You’re better than she is.” _Fuck off ugly cunt._ “You care about right and wrong, and deep down you know what you did was wrong. You’re a knight, Jaime, and need to make this right.”

Jaime sighed, resigned to his fate and agreed he would talk to her about it. When neither said another word on the matter for a while Cersei decided she had eavesdropped enough and yawned loudly, sitting up and stretching as if she just woke.

“Are we close to shore?” she asked, reaching into the pack and grabbing a mealy apple.

“Another hour of rowing,” Brienne answered. “Maybe a little less.”

Cersei just nodded and leaned back against her side of the boat. It was dark, with only the stars and a large full moon to light their way, and cold. Cersei wrapped the cloak she was using as a blanket around her and shivered, wordlessly staring out over the black ocean until an hour or so later they saw the shores of an island they would be spending the night on.

It was a rocky shore and Jaime needed to help Cersei navigate over them. After securing their boat Brienne told Jaime to start collecting firewood while she started building their shelter. The queen sat leaning against a palm tree watching the two knights set up camp. At one point she started to help Jaime but the second time Brienne told her the wood she collected was no good because of how full of wet rot it was, she gave up and went back to her spot. 

Eventually Jaime got a roaring fire built and Brienne had two little makeshift shelters made of driftwood and bamboo built. The three of them sat around the fire, drying their bones and warming themselves from the cold of the shore. Brienne was quickly weaving some vines through some sticks. “What are you doing?” Cersei asked.

“I’m making a trap,” she answered without looking up. “By morning we should have some game for breakfast.”

“Why don’t you just go out and spear some fish? That’s what all you islanders do isn’t it?”

“I’ve never speared a fish in my life.” She grabbed another bundle of sticks. “Tarth isn’t some backwoods little island where you throw sticks at fish, we aren’t Crannogmen.”

“Could have fooled me.”

He poked at the fire with a stick. “Cersei, remember you and I went to Tarth once, for Robert's first tour of the kingdom.”

Brienne cocked her head at him. “You never told me that.”

“Hmm. The island itself was absolutely gorgeous and Evenfall itself was beautiful. All that flawless white marble; even the Eyrie didn’t look as grand.”

A giant blush stole up her cheeks and she quickly looked down, a smile tugging at her plump lips. “Well the Eyrie actually got their marble from Tarth.”

Jaime smiled back and nudged her with his foot. “So you said.”

She looked back up and met his gaze, her ugly smile growing bigger. Amusement danced in both their eyes. “Just once or twice.”

Cersei looked back and forth between the two knights, narrowing her eyes at the tall woman. They had no right to share smiles or little secret stories or histories. But if it was story time, Cersei had one of her own. 

“You know I think I do remember that,” she said with a sinful grin, running a finger down Jaime’s arm. “You and I ditched the most boring party I’ve ever been to, and we snuck off to the armory to make love.” 

Jaime shot her a flare but didn’t dare speak against her. Cersei turned back to the creature, who was burning a bright crimson red. “I also remember the Lord's daughter in a blue dress, an ugly little beast who was fawning over and following around the king's little tulip brother all night.”

“Stop it,” Brienne snapped back at her, using far more force than Cersei thought possible. “Don’t you dare talk about Renly.”

“Why shouldn’t I? He was my family after all, don’t forget the little pillow biter was my brother by law.”

“Keep his name out of your mouth!”

Cersei laughed. Well _this_ was an interesting development. “You loved him! By Gods, you loved him! Jaime, did you know about this?”

“Knock it off, Cersei,” he warned sharply.

“Well I have to say I think you two would have been a wonderful couple,” she continued. “You look like a man on the best of days, from behind I bet the little fruit never would have been able to tell the difference.”

 _“Shut your mouth!”_ she hissed, standing up in a flurry; fists clenched and trembling. The look of rage and hate in her expression would have frightened Cersei if she knew Jaime wouldn’t have fought the creature to defend her.   
  
Her twin stood up as well, hands raised. “Take a walk, Brienne,” he urged her gently. “Let’s take a walk, I’ll go with you. Come on.”

He put a hand on her arm and slowly guided her away from the fire and into the wooded area beyond the shoreline, and didn’t once look back at his sister.


	9. Chapter 9

_ It’s just the wind. It's just the wind. You’re around a fire, no wild animal is gonna come near you. Jaime will come back, he’s going to come back, he’ll be right back.  _

The wind moaned and Cersei huddled closer to the fire, wrapping her arms around her knees, her emerald eyes full of fear as she looked out over the dark rocky shoreline. It had been a good long while since her twin led the great beast off into the woods to calm her down after Cersei mocked Renly, leaving the queen alone by the fire, which had gone down considerably. Whenever she tried to re-make it she just seemed to smother the flames rather than build them up

A loud snap and rustling came from the jungles behind the sands and the queen stood up in a hurry, wielding the stick she had been poking at the fire with. 

“Who's there?!” she called out, voice trembling as she watched two shapes emerge from the brushes. “Stay back!  **_I’m warning you_ ** !”

“You could at least have set the stick on fire first,” her brothers voice rang out from the dark, and relief flooded Cersei so violently she could have cried. Moments later he and Brienne stepped back into the light of the fire, two rabbits slung over their shoulders.

She wanted to run and take him in her arms. She had been so relieved that he was back but when she saw the creature standing next to him, Cersei remembered why exactly he ran off and abandoned her  _ again, _ and once more it was because of the Tarth woman _. _

Her palm tingled after she slapped him across the face. Brienne’s big blue eyes went wide, and her look was full of utter hate and loathing.

“You left me  **_alone_ ** ,” she hissed, watching as he clutched at his now red cheek. “In the dark, with no defenses, on some strange island. Animals or Daenerys supporters or anyone could have come and hurt me. But did you care? No. No, you had to comfort the great cow rather than stay with your lover, you had to make sure her feelings weren’t hurt rather than stay and protect the mother of your children.”

“I left you my sword,” Jaime countered, and Cersei raised her hand to slap him but before she could Brienne reached out and grabbed hold of her wrist. Not tight enough to bruise but enough so that she couldn’t move.

“Hit him again,” Brienne warned, eyes flashing dangerously. “And you and I are going to have more than a conversation.”

“Don’t touch me!” Cersei spat, wrenching free of her grip. She looked at Jaime. “You’re just going to stand there and allow this beast to put her hands on me? To **_threaten_** me _?_ Was it your hand they hacked off or your manhood?”

“You can both testify as to that not being true.”

“ **_Jaime_ ** !” Brienne snapped, her pale face going a dark shade of crimson red, utterly scandalized at the mere mention of fucking him. But Cersei just sneered, a lionesses snarl on her lips.

“More sorrow to go around then, Brother, having to pretend such a sad small thing could do anything but make us pity you.”

Without another word she stalked off not towards the brush, but to the edge of the shore, sitting down in the sand and ignoring the two knights muttering. She didn’t look back at them, instead choosing to stare out over the blackened water.

She hated this. She hated that they had to rely on the creature to get them to safety, she hated that she owned the woman a life debt, she hated that Jaime cared enough about someone else that he would go and comfort her and leave her, and she hated that someone else loved him enough to risk the queens ire and physically stop her from putting Jaime in his place. 

Tywin never laid a hand on Cersei. He wouldn’t want to mark up her pretty little face when he invited Lords over to look at her like she was a prized broodmare being put up for auction, but he had no problem making sure Tyrion and Jaime learned their lessons through force of hand, and it worked. That was how you got people to behave when they needed to be corrected, she learned through watching her father. When her cubs were younger she would yank them by the ear to get them to listen, and she had always struck Jaime or Tyrion when they acted out of turn.

That’s the way the world worked. That’s the way Lannisters worked, that’s the way she and Jaime worked. If the Tarth woman didn’t understand that then she was more naive than the queen thought she was.

The wind blew sharp and cold off the water and Cersei shuddered, but she would not go back to the fire. Her pride would not afford it, so instead she sat there on her little patch of damp cold sand, doing her best to ignore the cold air and the mutters form around her, and the smell of hare that left her mouth watering and the prince inside her scratching and clawing for it that wafted over from their fire.

Eventually the queen became lost in her thoughts, only interrupted by the sound of familiar footsteps. Jaime held out a healthy chunk of fire roasted meat on a stick, and her stomach growled. But she turned away from him. He would need to work for her affections and apologies, just as he always had.

“I’m not hungry,” she lied.

Jaime sighed, sitting down beside her in the sand. “You were complaining the whole way here about lack of food.” Nothing. “Cersei, you need to eat. The baby-.”

“Go enjoy your supper with the cow and leave me alone!”

She expected Jaime to argue, to fight, to say that he wouldn’t leave until she ate something, to say that he only wanted to sup with her. But instead he just wordlessly stood up and headed back towards the fire, taking the rabbit with him without so much as a second glance, and sat down besides Brienne. 

Tears rushed to her eyes that she quickly wiped away. Her brother had changed. He grew tired of the games they had played since childhood, he was growing tired of  _ her. _ She could feel it. She had felt it for a long while, ever since he came back with one hand and the tall blonde making doe eyes at him.

Why did he need to change, why couldn’t he be happy with the way things were? Why couldn’t he be happy with Cersei as she was?

An hour or so passed in silence, and the pains in her stomach nearly overwhelmed her. Eventually, they overwhelmed her pride and she went back to the fire, with as much dignity and regency as a queen in a wet sandy dress eating meat off of a stick could be, and sat down opposite the two knights, and without a word, she grabbed the stick of hare he had offered to her earlier, which had been propped up in such a way that it was still warm, if not a little bit overdone. But the meat was still tender and the juices ran down her chin when she bit into it, ignoring the look her twin was giving her. When she was done she stood up from her spot and made her way to the makeshift shelter. She covered herself with the beasts great cloak and faced away from them. 

She was surprised when a little while later she heard Jaime’s footsteps and a moment later felt him lay down beside her.

“Wouldn’t think you’d wanna be near me,” she muttered.

“Of course I want to be near you,” he said, his tone almost bordering on hurt.

“You could have fooled me.”

She heard him sign, and then felt his arms wrap around her and turned her to face him. In the dim glow of the dying firelight he looked so tired, so old, so weary and exhausted. “I love you, Cersei. More than anyone. But you need to stop with the cruelty, you’re not a child anymore.”

“So you’re calling me a child?”

“That’s not what I said.” His voice was sharp, edged and hard. He took a deep breath to calm himself down, and to prepare him for the upcoming fight. “Brienne is important to me. I care for her. Hate me for it all you want but it’s true. She’s my friend, Cersei, my best friend, and without her neither of us would be standing here. You owe her our son's life.”

Her heart ached in her chest, and she hated how small her voice sounded. “I thought I was your best friend.”

“You’re my twin. You’re my lover, you’re the mother of my children. You don’t need to occupy EVERY space in my heart.”

Her nostrils flared and her expression hardened. “So you admit she does have a spot in your heart?”

“Wretched stubborn woman!” The lion hissed. “How is it that your eyesight is so bad that you manage to miss EVERY point I try to make?” He rolled over and turned away from her, saying nothing else.

Sensing the end of conversation Cersei rolled away from as well, hating the arrangement. She liked to sleep face to face with her twin. She liked to see herself reflected in his bright green eyes when she woke up and found him looking at her with all the love and softness in the world.

A little while later his breathing had slowed, and soft snores passed from his lips but Cersei was more wide awake than ever. The ground was hard, even with leaves the creature used to make them a bed, and the cloak smelled familiar but dissimilar in a way that kept her up. It smelled like leather and steel and horses, like Jaime, but there was something else too. Not perfume exactly, but not the musky oder a man might have. 

It smelled like the Tarth woman, Cersei realized, turning over on the hard ground to try to get comfortable. Like white shores and sunlight, and they were suddenly way too overbearing for the queen.

She climbed out from her shelter, stretching her arms and reaching towards the black sky. The fire had died out completely, but in the light of the moon reflecting off the sea have her just enough light so she could see that she was not the only one awake at this hour. 

Brienne was sitting on the edge of the shore, staring out across the great salt water. 

The queen took a deep breath and headed off towards her, announcing herself with a hissed curse when she stumbled over a rock. Brienne looked back at her for a moment, and turned her view back towards the ocean.

“Your Grace,” she greeted her with courtesy as Cersei sat beside her. “You should get some rest, it’s going to be a long day of rowing.”

“You’re the one whose going to be doing the actual rowing, I could say the same to you.”

“I’ve done more on less sleep,” Brienne answered. A silence filled the air as neither one took the other's advice. Finally, after a long moment, her highborn stoic voice filled the air. “I should have sent Jaime back to you when he followed me. I was being selfish, I wanted comfort. Forgive me.”

Cersei tried not to think about what ‘comfort’ she really wanted from her brother. 

“Yes you should have sent him back,” she told her. “I was left all alone, and your feelings are infinitely far less important than my life. Especially feelings about some long dead sissy stag.”

Even in the dim dark light Cersei could see her shoulders square and her eyes harden. “King Renly was one of the best men I’ve ever known,” she shot back hotly. “And that night of the ball, the one you mocked me for, it was-...” Any hate melted away into grief, and she bowed her ugly head. “It was one of the best nights of my life. Renly was kind to me when he had no reason to be. The brother of a king, the Lord of a Great House and the daughter of a miner lord; he should have ignored me. But he was kind, he was gallant, he was… he was perfect.”

The queen could hear the tears in her voice. For once she found herself not wanting to mock another woman for their usual choice of weaponry. “I was sworn to protect him, and I failed. I was sworn to Lady Stark and I failed her as well. I lost my mother, my siblings… I couldn’t save anyone I was supposed to protect except Sansa, and I broke my oath to her in order to save Jaime and the woman who wanted her dead in the first place.”

Cersei bowed her head, letting the silence linger between them for a while before she spoke. Why she was telling this absurd ugly woman this she wasn’t sure but it came flowing out of her as easy as wind. “I lost all three of my children. My imp of a brother killed my parents. You want to talk about not being able to protect the ones you love? My son died in my arms, and there was nothing I could do but watch him struggle for his last breath. Jaime is all I have left in this world, and now it appears I have to share him with… with you,” she settled on, deciding to set aside the insults for now. Cersei chuckled sadly, picking up a stick and scribbling in the sand with jt. “Who would have ever thought the stupidest one handed man we’ve ever met would be worth so much pain and strife?”

“Don’t call him that,” Brienne said quickly.

Cersei’s hand tightened its grip on the stick. “Hes my brother.”

“I don’t care. He may be your brother but he’s also your… your partner. He loves you. More than anything in the world, and when you tear him down like that, calling him an idiot, calling him stupid, emasculating him… it kills him. He feels like he can’t live up to who he’s supposed to be for you.”

Cersei scoffed. “How would you know?”

Brienne just looked at her. “Because he told me.”

Without another word she stood, wiping the sand from her breeches. “I’m going to take a walk around the perimeter then go to bed. I suggest you get some sleep, Your Grace.” With a bow of her head the creature headed off, out of view of the stunned queen.

Cersei stood from her spot and slowly made her way back over to the shelter, avoiding tripping or snagging her skirts on any driftwood or rocks, and laid down besides Jaime. After a moment she reached over and shook him awake rather roughly.

“What?” he muttered half asleep as he turned to look at her. “Whasgoinon?”

“You’re not an idiot, and your cock is magnificent,” she said firmly. 

Jaime blinked. “...Thank you?”

Cersei gave him a curt nod, wrapped her arms around him so he couldn’t roll away from her again, and fell asleep.


	10. Chapter 10

Cersei woke to the smell of some kind of meat roasting on the fire, and the sounds of her brother and Brienne speaking in hushed voices as to not wake her. She sat up and stretched, looking out over the rocky shore they had spent the night at. The sun had just begun its creep over the horizon and the world was awash in pale blue. 

The night had been rough to bear. Jaime had slept soundly and the Tarth woman built their shelter over soft sand with two large leaves beneath them to give them some kind of protection from the ground but even still Cersei had never slept outside in her life and it was not something she hoped to become accustomed too. There were rustles in the bushes and strange howls that seemed too close to comfort. At one point she shook Jaime awake and ordered him to go into the woods and slay whatever was making those sounds. 

He told her they wouldn’t come near the fire and to just ignore it. When she told him she was going to wake Brienne up, he snapped at his sister to leave the tall woman alone and let her get some rest, reminding Cersei that not only did Brienne row for half the day and well into the night but she would be the one rowing all day tomorrow. So Cersei was forced to stay awake until the sound was gone and even then whenever she tried to fall back asleep there would be some new sound that would jolt her awake, and she would beg Jaime to go and check it out. 

After the forth time he stood up in a huff, grabbed his sword and for half a moment Cersei thought he would do the unthinkable and go and lay next to Brienne but he didn’t, and rather disappeared into the woods, yelling and shouting and making all kinds of noises to scare away whatever it was that had gotten close to their camp. He came out minutes empty later, declared it safe and flopped back on his makeshift pillow and closed his eyes. 

When she leaned over and kissed his cheek and thanked him he just grumbled in response m, but she swore she saw a fleeting smile on his lips as he fell back asleep. 

Cersei slept much better after that.

She stood up and stretched her arms to the sky, wincing at the pain in her back. She missed her feather bed, she missed her servants having a hot steaming bath waiting for her when she woke, she missed her silky sleep gowns…

 _You’re almost to Pentos_ , she told herself as she went over to the fire and sat down beside it. After they got there they would sleep in a magisters palace, and she would start regrouping and planning to take back her kingdom. 

“Morning,” Jaime greeted her, handing her stick of some kind of fire roasted meat on it. Her stomach rolled at the sight of it but she forced a tiny nibble. The skin was crisp and cracked under her teeth and the juices spurt hot and wet into her mouth as she tore into the flesh.

_Nope._

Cersei quickly handed off the meat to Jaime and she stumbled away from their fire on her hands and knees and emptied her stomach. In half a moment Jaime’s hand was rubbing her back and whispering quiet comforts to her as she heaved. When she was done she leaned back against him, wiping the wetness from her eyes with the back of her hand. 

“Are you alright, Your Grace?” Brienne asked as she came back over to the fire. “The meat couldn’t have gone bad already.”

“No it's- I’m fine. It’s just this sea air and a bad night's sleep,” she lied. Her hand went to her stomach, gently rubbing the small bump that she still managed to hide beneath her clothes but soon would be on full display to the world.

Cersei didn’t bother trying to eat anymore of the charred hare, choosing instead to eat the rather mealy apple they had brought with them from King's Landing. 

After breakfast they dismantled the camp, “incase Daenerys’ troops discovered their route,” Brienne said as she kicked sand over the burnt logs, and headed back out on their journey again. 

It took a whole other day of rowing and another night of rough camping on one of the little islands in the narrow sea where Brienne hunted for half the night in darkness and came back with an arm full of some queer fruit with bright red sweet flesh, thinking that perhaps some fresh fruit would help settle the queens stomach, getting her needs exactly right but for the wrong reasons. 

Cersei could have kissed the tall blonde. 

The next morning they were off again and by mid afternoon they finally, finally, reached the shores of Essos. 

“We’re going to have to find a city and buy some horses,” Brienne said as she helped Jaime pull the boat in the shore. “We’re still a two day ride away from Pentos.”

“How can you tell? Have you been to Essos before?” Cersei asked, taking another bite of the red fruit and spitting out a seed onto the ground. 

“When I was a girl my Maester taught me how to navigate by the stars and what each of the major cities looked like under the night sky. Last night's sky told me we’re somewhere north of Pentos so we head south. I could have sailed southwards but there wasn’t anymore islands between us and Pentos so I got us as close as I could.”

Cersei couldn’t help but be impressed. She thought Brienne was just rowing straight east the whole time but apparently there had been a method to it. But, she noticed sourly, Jaime looked rather impressed as well. 

The three of them headed off south, following the shore line as close as they could. It was a mostly quiet walk but after a while Cersei began to feel a tight sharp cramping in her legs, and the suns heat was beating down immensely hotter than even King’s Landing. She had never walked so much in her life. 

“Are we almost to a port?” she groaned, shuffling her feet along the sand. 

“I’m not sure,” Brienne answered without stopping her long strides. It prickled Cersei that the tall creature and Jaime had no problem walking for so long without so much as a single complaint, it prickled her that it looked ready to go another twenty more miles no problem, it prickled her that for every step their giant legs took she had to hurry after them, it prickled her that the sun was so hot, it prickled her that she was in Essos period, AND it prickled her that she had gone two whole days without wine.

“Well when will you be sure?” she snapped, and the two knights finally turned back to look at her. “This is why we brought you, so you could get us to Pentos! But if you can’t answer basic questions-!”

“Cersei, stop,” Jaime warned.

“No! We’ve been walking for what, 5 hours already?! Surely we’ve had to come across a port by now! The only option is that we’re lost and this beast doesn’t know where she’s going!”

“We’ve actually only been walking for about three hours, Your Grace,” Brienne said rather dryly.

Cersei took a step towards Brienne, and Jaime put himself in between them, and it prickled her that she knew he was only doing that because Cersei knew the creature wouldn’t fight back if she raised a hand to her.

“Why don't we walk for a little bit more and then make camp for the night?” he suggested. “Until then try to remember we’re all tired, we’re all exhausted…”

“I don’t want to make camp, I want an inn!”

“Well if we come across one we’ll stop,” Jaime said, his tone letting her know he was about to lose his patience with his sister. “But for now we keep walking.”

Without another word he turned back around and the two knights continued on. Having no other choice Cersei followed, kicking sand with every step hoping that some of it would wind up in the creature's shoes. 

Thankfully, for both Cersei’s sanity and Brienne's safety, a port soon came into view, and a rather lively one at that. A woman of Brienne’s height and statue was queer and attention grabbing here as well as Westeros, and her face flushed red and she quickly lowered her head when she saw two fish wives pointing and talking to themselves in a strange tongue before snickering.

Jaime glared at the two women but Brienne muttered to just leave it alone and they continued on their way to a horse stall. The man was old and weathered with dark leathery skin.

“We need three horses,” Brienne told him in the common tongue, and the man answered in a rapid string of Valyrian, pointing to the mounts. She begged him to slow down, asking slowly if he spoke the common tongue, but instead he just answered in Valyrian, gesturing to the horses again.

Cersei smirked and walked up to the man, nudging the tall blonde out of the way. “īlon jaelagon naejot sindigon hāre annes,” she said in flawless Valyrian, asking him for three horses, and for once it was Brienne's turn to look impressed.

“I didn’t know you spoke Valyrian,” she said as the horse master went and retrieved three horses.

“I was going to marry the prince, of course I know Valyrian,” Cersei scoffed, raising a brow. “Can’t anyone?”

Brienne just gave her a dry exasperated look but said nothing more on the subject as the man came back with three horses.

Cersei felt an emptiness as she took off her last two rings. All she had left was her earrings, which would buy them the food and water needed for the journey to Pentos along with a night at an inn, and her collar, a heavy bit of jewelry that was made of gold and emeralds, but they had to save that for when they got to Pentos. The man looked at the rings and shook his head.

“Two horses,” he said in the flowery language. 

“We need three,” she replied back. “This is all I have.”

“That buys you two,” he said.

“What’s he saying?” Jaime demanded. 

“He’s saying we can only afford two,” Cersei said in the common tongue. “Do either of you have anything to sell? Brienne you have your armor, can you sell that off?”

Brienne clutched the hilt of her sword. “I’m not giving away my armor,” she said, a stubborn firmness in her voice.

“We need three horses!”

“How about you ride with Brienne?” Jaime suggested, rubbing his temples. “I’d say ride with me but I only have one hand, I can barely control my horse as is. It’s only for two days anyway, we can buy you your own in Pentos. Besides, when was the last time you rode without a side saddle?”

It had been well before she married Robert, but even still. “Oh so I’m supposed to sell off everything of mine but she’s allowed to keep whatever she brought with her?”

“There’s a difference between a piece of jewelry and a suit of armor, Cersei.”

“But it’s still **_mine_ **! It’s all I brought from Westeros and I’m the only one who's had to give anything away! She gets to keep everything!” 

For a moment tears flooded her eyes that she quickly wiped away. Brienne's face looked wrecked with guilt and she bowed her head. “I… I can get another suit of arms made,” she muttered.

“No, and besides that cost far more than any horse.” Cersei pursed her lips, looking from Jaime to the creature. ‘A gift’ Brienne called the cobalt colored armor, a gift she risked her life to get back, a gift, the queen realized with clenched fists, that was given to her by her brother. “Cersei, just ride with Brienne okay?” Jaime begged. “Please?”

When she didn’t answer, he took hold her her hand and wrapped his arms around her. Brienne flushed and quickly looked away. “I will buy you new jewelry in Pentos,” he whispered to her as tender as tender could be. “Something to start our new life together, something that isn’t sullied by you having to lie or anything that has connections to Robert or anything else. It’ll be a new start. For both of us.”

He kissed her, and his dark blonde scuff pleasantly scratched at her cheeks, and when he ran his tongue against hers she moaned into his mouth, and pressed up against him, any earlier argument already forgotten.

They agreed to two horses, a grey palfrey for Jaime and a baymare for the two of them. Brienne was strong, and surprisingly gentle as she helped Cersei onto their horse, and the way her arms wrapped around the queen made her feel safe and secure as they rode through the town towards an inn. 

They paid for two rooms, and the moment they sat down at one of the tables for supper, Cersei had never been so grateful for a chair, and the bowl of thick and creamy fish stew and a large platter of fruit was the best she had ever eaten. Brienne ordered water as did Jaime, with a look towards Cersei that said he was hoping she would follow his example, but she ordered herself a cup of wine. Jaime watched her wearily as she drank, but the moment the red liquid touched her lips it sent her into a state of calm she hadn’t felt in days.

Afterwards Brienne said she was off to take a bath, and the two Lannisters made their way to their room. It was simple and small with a lumpy mattress made of straw, a small fireplace with an unkept stack of logs beside it, and a bedside table that needed a good dusting but the moment Cersei flopped down on the bed she groaned, feeling like she was back in her chambers in the Red Keep.

“Are you happy now?” Jaime asked in an amused tone as she snuggled up closer to her pillow.

“You have no idea,” she moaned, making her brother chuckle. A moment later she felt the bed dip behind her, and she felt his hands go to the back of her dress. “What are you doing?” she asked, emerald eyes still shut as he slowly unzipped her gown. 

“What does it feel like I’m doing?” he muttered against her skin as he slid off the gown from her shoulders before placing a kiss against her bare skin.

“I know what it feels like.” She gnawed at her lips as he rolled his hips into her from behind, and kissed behind her ear. “It feels good…”

He reached over her and cupped her breast, gently rolling a dark and dusky nipple between his thumb and forefinger. She bit back a moan as she turned in his arms and wrapped her arms around him.

“What are you doing?” Cersei asked again, running a hand through his graying mane.

Jaime nuzzled his lips against her throat. “I know this has been hard on you,” he whispered against her skin as he climbed on top of her, shimmying the gown the rest of the way off. “I know you’re hurting right now, I know this hasn’t been easy for you. I just wanted to make you feel better.”

His hand came up and gently caressed the growing bump as he kissed her lips, her jaw, down her neck. She intook a sharp breath as he suckled around her breasts, flicking his tongue against her pebbles and releasing it with a wet pop before giving its twin equal attention.

It wasn’t hateful. It wasn’t hurried or angry, it was slow and soft, every kiss gentle, every touch full of love and devotion.

“This isn’t us,” she moaned as she pulled his shirt off and kneaded the muscles in his back with her fingers. “Jaime…” 

“Maybe it’s time we try something new.” 

He kissed down, down, down, tenderly and affectionately pressing his lips to her rounded belly before he kneeled on the ground. Jaime put her legs around his shoulders and laid a soft kiss to her pale inner thigh. Cersei laid there whimpering, pulling at his hair as he buried his face between her legs, inhaling her scent and tasting her. She gasped and moaned and pressed his head further into her as he sucked and devoured and feasted on her wetness, fingers pushing and twisting inside his twin and soon enough his name was being screamed to the heavens. 

Afterwards they laid there, a tired smile on each of their faces as they laid chest to chest, hand in hand.

“You do that every night, this journey will be a lot more enjoyable,” she told him and he chuckled.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Jaime ran his fingers through her golden hair. “I’m sorry about your rings.”

“It’s fine.” She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around him. “She gets to keep her armor, I get to keep someone who doesn’t have to close his eyes and picture someone else when he’s inside me. It’s a fair trade off.”

She felt him stiffen and a moment later his arms disentangled from around her. “You already won,” he said sharply, his voice a far cry from what it was moments ago as he hurried from their bed. “Do you need to be cruel as well?”

She sat up and watched as he yanked on his breeches and shirt, with as much deftness as a one handed man could. Cersei didn’t understand it. She had made comments about other women before, and he had laughed at them, even joined in sometimes. It never once gave him cause to leave her bed.

“Jaime, it was just a joke. Come back to bed. Please?”

“Do you see me laughing?” He pulled on his boots. I’m going to go take a bath.” Jaime stormed to the door and looked back, emerald eyes that matched his own full of ire. “And your comment may have been a ‘joke’, but what isn’t a lie is how good it felt when I was inside a woman who would rather cut out her own tongue then speak ill of someone who saved her, who saved her brother, who spent half the night after rowing all day looking for fruit so a woman who hates her wouldn’t be sick, who's constantly mocked for her looks when her heart is far more beautiful than most, and trust me sweet sister; my eyes were wide open the whole time…”

Jaime slammed the door behind him when he left and Cersei crossed her arms, got angry tears rushing down her face that had the babe not been growing inside her never would have fallen. 

It was a jest. It was just a joke, that was all. He didn’t need to ruin what had been turning into a beautiful night because of it… It wasn’t fair. Why should Cersei be expected to change who and what she was just because he suddenly grew a conscience regarding one absurd ugly woman?

Yes he made points. Cersei won. Jaime was hers, he kissed her in front of the creature, he shared his bed openly with her with no shame, and Brienne had saved Cersei (more than once). She had done things for the queen that Cersei knew she would never repay, nor did she have any innate desire to settle the score, and fine, perhaps equating a suit of armor to a piece of jewelry was over the top, and the comment had been a little harsh, but that was still no reason for Jaime to storm off!

Cersei nuzzled against her pillow, the last few days of exhaustion overwhelming her past the point of wanting to fight it until Jaime came back. That night she dreamed of him. Jaime was rocking into her, kissing her, loving her, running his calloused hands through her long blonde hair, the way it used to be before the Sparrow hacked it off, fucking her the way he had done before he stormed out; soft and sweet and gentle.

When she came, and Cersei opened her eyes, the most dazzling pair of blue eyes she had ever seen were staring down at her, and soft plump lips pressed against hers...

Please Review!


	11. Chapter 11

Cersei wasn’t sure when Jaime returned but when she awoke he was there, arms wrapped around her and snoring softly. She roused him awake, and he seemed to be less angry then he had been the other night but there was still an uneasiness as they readied themselves for the day.

When they went down for breakfast that morning Brienne was there in her armor, Oathkeeper at her side and three bowls of porridge in front of her and a platter of fruit for the queen. She didn’t look distressed so she assumed that Jaime hadn’t told her about the comments she made. 

“We’ll arrive in Pentos sometime tomorrow,” said Brienne as they sat down. “There should be a lot more towns between here and there which means inns for the night,” she added with a hopeful smile towards Cersei who just stared down at her fruits and porridge. 

Afterwards they mounted up on their horses, the queen riding with Brienne once more, and began their journey. The she-knight was right, there were a lot more cities then what they had seen on the first leg of their journey. But more cities meant more people, and more people meant more possibilities of people recognizing Cersei and sending a raven to Daenerys so she had to wear a cloak with a hood over her face the whole journey.

She wondered what the little whore was doing now. There was no possible way the North would bow to her. The same issue she warned Joffrey about would plague Daenerys, even with dragons. The North was too big, too wild to be held by outsiders. The stubborn little honorable beasts would never bow to a woman who burned enemies alive. The other Houses of Westeros would turn against her soon as well, and civil war would plague her reign from day one. Only there would be no Walder Fray and Roose Bolton to end it all with a dagger at a wedding for her.

War made a nation weak, especially one against itself. They would be so busy fighting each other they would be numb to the threat from the east and soon, Cersei would return, her son crowned and Jaime by her side.

The thought of the Targaryen whore and Stark bitch fighting each other to the death brought a sense of joy to her spirit, a bright light to her smiling face. 

When night fell Brienne asked the twins, mainly Cersei, if they wanted to spend any more money on an inn or spend one more night camping, Jaime said he would be willing to sell his golden hand for coin rather than have Cersei sell anymore of her jewelry but Cersei refused.

“Will you keep it covered up?” she asked, eyeing the golden hand distastefully. She loved her brother to the death but the sight of his stump, scarred and maimed, with that weird boney end of it made her shudder in disgust. During sex he would sometimes forget to put it on and occasionally it would catch her eye but she ignored it if they were in the thrones of passion. But touching her with it was out of the question, and seeing it uncovered constantly.... She needed some kind of slip, at least.

Cersei felt Brienne’s grip tighten uncomfortably tight. 

“He shouldn’t have to cover it up,” Brienne spoke sharply, so sharply that it shocked the queen. Jaime tried to wave away her anger but for once the shy knight did not back down. “It’s a mark of his heroism, not something to flinch at or be disgusted at its sight!”

“Brienne, stop,” he muttered, his face burning scarlet. “It’s fine.” 

“It is not fine, Jaime! She has no right-!”

Cersei twisted around to glare at the ugly beast. “You do NOT tell me what rights I do or do not have! Especially as it concerns my brother!”

“I do not care what title you hold, you will not be cruel as concerning his maiming! I won’t allow it!” 

“You do not allow me anything,  **_Beast_ ** !”

“This I do!”

“Will the two of you stop?!”

Cersei glared at Brienne but her only options to get away were to walk when there was a perfectly good horse beneath her. So she just turned back around and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Sell the hand or keep it, it doesn't matter to me. But you WILL keep it covered up with a slip if you do.”

Cersei knew Brienne would rather chop off HER hand then go against Jaime and risk him yelling at her again, so she received no response and they spent the rest of the journey to the city in silence. 

The golden hand did bring them a hefty bag of coins. They risked someone telling the queen if they showed up with the hand as is, so Brienne smashed it down into unrecognizable fragments. When they thought Cersei wasn’t looking, Brienne bought the maimed stump to her mouth and pressed her lip against it before she helped him with the crimson leather slip, and Jaime smiled. The queen shuddered in disgust and turned away before her stomach rolled.

Let the beast have the stump. It was as ugly and deformed as her, unnatural and ill gotten. Cersei would have his hand made of flesh and blood; as perfect as the rest of him. 

As perfect as her.

Dinner that night was a silent tense affair with no one speaking. Jaime tried to engage with both of them but neither had much to say to the other and he finally gave up. When the creature was done she bid a stiff good night to Jaime, said nothing to the queen and made her way up to the room leaving the two twins alone. 

“I was kind to her the whole way,” Cersei said sharply when she saw Jaime open his mouth. “I did exactly what you asked of me.” She poured herself another glass of wine, the third that night, ignoring Jaime’s pointed look. “It’s not my fault she treats you like a child who can’t defend himself.”

“She was just looking out for me.” 

“You don’t need ‘looking out for,” Cersei snapped. “Especially not from me. Just because I don’t want that  _ thing _ sliding between my legs like she does-!”

“I earned it saving her life,” Jaime reminded her sharply, and a tight pain gripped at her chest. “Of course she’s not going to want to see people be disgusted with it.” 

“Yes I’m well aware,” she spat. “The handsome white knight loses his hand protecting the young maidens from a band of northern monsters, what a song for the ages. But you couldn’t be bothered saving me from Roberts’s fumblings could you?” Jaime flushed scarlet and bowed his head, avoiding her gaze.

“He was the king,” her brother grumbled.

Cersei drained the rest of her wine and poured herself another. “So was Aerys.”

Jaime chose to stay in the stables that night rather than Cersei’s bed, much to her annoyance and delight. Delight because she couldn’t think of anything less appealing then sleeping beside him that night and annoyed because when he joined the two women for breakfast that morning his eyes were a dark green in the early morning light, he hadn’t shaved, his hair was slightly disheveled, and he smelled of warm hay and horses and soft leather and something distinctly ‘Jaime’. It made both women’s brain fuzzy and Cersei hated he could still do that to her when she was mad at him. She didn’t want her brain fuzzy. She wanted her brain angry.

Cersei could hardly blame the tall knight for tripping over her words and not being able to take her big blue eyes off him when she told them that they should reach Pentos by nightfall, blushing as she did.

Jaime thanked her, ate his breakfast in silence and soon after they were mounted up and with a click of her tongue and a jostle of his heels the three of them were finally off, ready to reach the city where they would, hopefully, start the rest of their lives...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know in the show Cersei didn’t mind the stump and didn’t make any comments about it, but in the books she definitely not only had a problem with the stump but she was very ableist towards him in regards to it. She flinched away from it, she insulted it, she was absolutely in the wrong for her thoughts and comments about it. Like her being disgusted by his stump is absolutely book canon. So please don’t get angry at me for that, blame GRRM. Also Pentos soon!


End file.
